Umbrella
A Journal of poetry and kindred prose


Traci Brimhall

was born in Minnesota but lived in much of the Southeast before moving to New York City. She currently attends Sarah Lawrence College where she is earning her MFA in Poetry. She knew she wanted to be a poet in undergrad when her teacher read aloud to some students sitting on a picnic table, and she realized a poem could change a person's life.

Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming in:
a-pos-tro-phe, kaleidowhirl, Tattoo Highway, Relief, and Wicked Alice.


< Back to Poetry Contents>

How To Listen

When Beethoven’s ears failed him,
he sawed off the legs of his piano
and laid it on the floor.
He pressed himself to the boards
and felt E vibrate differently than C,
one hand on the piano,
the other sensing the tremors in each plank.
His body learned what his ears knew,
how low notes are like ripples on dark water
and high notes like sunlight caught in rain.

Each tiny hammer gently beat the tight strings.
On his face a look of mild confusion,
eyes wide and smiling as the right chord struck—
the way your face looks
with your ear pressed to the swell of my stomach,
picking up the tick of an extra heartbeat.
 
<< Previous Poet
Next Poet >>