Keith Montesano (only grabbing moisturizers, skin creams). You can’t tell a voice from a piano—tighten the noose hanging from the chandelier, then loosen, light it on fire in the backyard, early morning dew snuffing the flame. Then you cut the ignition, as the garage is not the ideal place. At 27 minutes in, you’re sprawled on the kitchen floor, the hiss of gas falling short to what heaven’s like: those Sirens howling, muses shedding clothes, your wife twenty years before, the hill above St. Michael’s graveyard, cans of beer in both of your hands. There was no full moon then—you couldn’t glimpse her body.
III. Section V – Pulses (27:30 – 67:00) Age 16—your doctor told you: only marry if there will be no divorce, talk it through, love should be a sealant. Now the pace quickens—pianos, metallaphone, voice— and everything is percussion, unlike your slowing heart, head on the only pillow she left. And sex, he said, make sure it’s because of love; it can also be the cause. Then you root through a drawer filled with tools, find the electrical tape. It will be quicker if the cracks are sealed: all windows and doors. Now your breathing and the pulses slow. The instruments and your own pulse blur. You think Reich made the music for this—
Crab Orchard Review
◆ 165