Classroom.

Oven.

Coffin.

Box,

which is seldom found

in nature or in music.

Nature abhors a corner

but loves a triangle,

adores a curve

or the serpentine lines

of shores and pine ridges.

Triangles of ferns, flint, stars.

Curves of caves, moon, space.

 

Bells flare from trombones

and trumpets and winds.

And the cello’s strings

caress its maple curves.

Even the squeeze box

is a line quavering

between ballads and waltzes

in triangle time.

 

The box can lead only to the boxcar.

We all know where the boxcar leads.

 

–samfiftyfour, 2023