We’re allocating each of you a musician, they said,
we want you to compose something for
their instrument – anything you’d like – and they’ll perform it.
One hour! Then we’ll come back and show and tell.
Ever done anything like that, Ava?
You have to understand that trying or enjoying was a
fault back then. A weakness,
so it’s not like we were buzzing –
chair tipped back, tie short and fat, covert
mascara, lip gloss, gum.
I went to my assigned classroom purposefully dumb.
Waiting for me was a man – large, red-
haired, red-bearded, smiling.
I couldn’t see a horn or drum or violin.
What do you play? I asked him and he laughed,
I’m a baritone, he said.
I’d hoped to get the flute, of course.
I could hear the other students in the other rooms,
constructing melodies with clarinets and cellos.
What do I do with you? I asked.
He handed me a sheet of paper with blank staves.
Just write the notes, and write some words beside
them, and if you want vibrato draw a squiggly line, and if
you want me to be loud or soft, or to crescendo – write it
in, don’t worry about the proper symbols.
He was nice. Which made it worse.
It felt too intimate to put words in this large man’s mouth.
I sat, head down,
pretended to sketch out ideas
while he sat at a distance, emanating warmth.
I felt grim and stupid.
The conductor poked his head around the door,
five-minute warning!
I needed words.
I had the exam anthology in my bag, I
opened it at random on a poem – took the first phrase
that stood out –
green tigering the gold.
Neutral enough, I thought –
what could anyone accuse me of liking?
