Listen

We’re introduced
and engage in small talk–
String Quartet, Op. 4.

All the score:
the notes in each bar,
the articulation, the tone;
we have so much
to learn from one
another.

We listen closely.
More than once.
We watch the night
paint surfaces and we
take notes.

What more can we do?
The music becomes richer,
more precise as we draw
closer than before.

Jack Galmitz was born in 1951 in New York City. He attended the public schools from which he graduated. His poems and stories have been published in various journals, including Otoliths, Synchronized Chaos, and noon: a journal of the short poem. He lives with his wife in Queens, New York.