Six Suites for Cello

Six blanklings
lined up
in rows of deep-sea currents
and baby demons:
faceless. Yours.

They loop around the years,
curving awkward
arcs into your arms. You
forget to notice tendons scrounging
coins in the gutter.

Emerging-- a perfectly drunk order
by which to shelve your despair,
leaving space enough to wonder:
over-listen to the same lament--
so mirrored in your finger-pads--
and does the fall seem
an unexpected stumble
on practiced sixteenth-stairs,
death a yowling crescendo?

Regular as blood,
calluses learn your hours,
ignore your plaster of normalcy,
seek only to varnish this harsh noise.

Stammer
any reason for:
your mantis sway,
the webbing pulse
around you, the cocked rifle of your head
which asks
if everything is music, if you are too high to hear.

The silver of knowing
what you’ve thought
before you’ve caught it
has gilded you tight
into your own: so much
simpler to etch a stagnant wave into
the ears of others; watch them
strain to find you in the shells.

I wrote this a while ago, and, after I showed it to a more experienced writer, who declared it trite and overwrought, I decided to pitch it. But, here it is, and I still like it. I would appreciate feedback on whether it is worth pursuing, and how best to go about it. bella