The universe is sad.

I heard it when Artur Rubenstein played the piano.

He was a little man with small hands.

We were bombing Germany by then.

I went to see him a dark warehouse

where a piano had been placed for his practice—

or whatever he did before a recital.

He signed the book I had with me—

it was called Warsaw Ghetto.

I later heard about him—

his affairs with young women—

if only I had known—but I was

in love with you.

Artur is dead;

and you, my darling,

the imprint of your face, alert like a deer—

oh god, it is eaten away—

the earth has taken it back

but I listen to Artur—

he springs out of the grave—

his genius wired to this tape—

a sad trick of the neural pathways, resonating flesh

and my old body remembers the way you touched me.