You can’t really see him because his back is to you,
but you can tell from the way his cheekbones turn up on the sides
that he is smiling.
He sways and tilts with the music,
jabbing at the woodwinds and
diving into the strings
in a romantic embrace.
Bows stab at the air in unison
and with a flick of the wrist he brings them down as one.
His arms tense and his head jerks to one side
like a tic.

black polished shoes shine like supernovas

His shoulders are squared
and you would think from his posture
that he had hand-crafted all the instruments himself–
he didn’t, you know,
but I’ll tell you what he did do:
He took the bashful flute and made it bold.
He introduced the elegant viola to the hoots of the clarinet.
He took the wild, exclusive strings and tamed them
with the officious blare of trumpets and the
forebodingly foreign bangs, booms, and blips of percussion.
He took the solitary harp and said, look, harp.
A cello for you, a timpani,
a bassoon.
Make friends now or I will force you to do it later.

His baton moves like the brush of a painter–
short and precise at first, like the renowned pointillism of Seurat,
and then drawn out
into the swooping gesture that makes a Picasso’s background.
He is the Jackson Pollack of the orchestra.

He points it now like the wand of a magician
pulling long vibrant scarves of dwindling decrescendos,
then dropping coins with the staccato plucks of the violins.

Sometimes he is gentle.

He caresses the music,
basks in it,
soothes it into charmed cooperation.

Then suddenly he is sharp. Swift. Angular.

He pounces on the piece–
the spring in his step picks up until he is almost jumping–
his hands move in little twitches–
You’d think he was crazy if you couldn’t hear it too.

And you almost can’t, a few times,
you start to forget,
but he shows you. He reminds you.
He brings you back again and again,
and you could swear it works every time.

When the piece halts and he turns away from the music
to take his bows and nod at the applause
that practically swallows him whole,
when he drops his arms and turns,
don’t look at his face.
His face doesn’t matter.

What matters is the way his hands take the score
and rip it off the paper and mold it into magic.
What matters is the way he bounces on his ankles
like a little extra boost from the oboe or the piano
or even a tap from the triangle
could send him flying.
What matters is the way he dances his instructions
as if he’d rather sing them.
It’s not his face.
You used to know that and even now,
as the hall unfolds into applause, I can tell you’re forgetting it.
It’s the fact that you never see it.