Sometimes I feel like I’m writing the score

for a film that doesn’t yet exist,

but everything that will happen

in the film will happen to me.

Is this what they call plot? This daily

picking up of the same things—

glasses, coffee cup, pen, book, keys—

and setting them back down again?

Narrative has always troubled me,

so I’ll leave that to someone else

and write the mood instead, also

approximating setting: a little piano

to suggest rain, and violin for a river,

long and thin. That key change?

A meander. If the score is plain

and sweet, it’s because the life is—

mostly. I don’t know how it ends,

but given the budget, it will end quietly.

One day I’ll find myself near a river,

and I’ll realize, This is that film,

the one I scored, and this is the scene where

rain starts falling. And in that moment

it will, and it will sound like piano.