We make the life we need.
The city’s bells are muffled,
the sky is frozen copper.
You can still hear, sometimes.
Still win the improvising contests.
A sonata in C sharp minor,
quasi fantasia, like a blind girl
lit by moonlight she cannot see.
New melodies unfold from tiny seeds.
Euphoria, then presto agitato, manic rage.
The music of loss, of losing. Bass clef.
High treble only once
and in despair. Then the new
shocked calm of Is it true. Is this
what it sounds like, going deaf?
• From Beethoven Variations: Poems on a Life, published by Chatto (£12). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com. Free UK p&p over £15.
