Australian-born Katrin Talbot’s collection Wrong Number is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. She has five other chapbooks, besides Attached—Poetry of Suffix, including The Blind Lifeguard from Finishing Line Press, The Little Red Poem and noun’d, verb, both from dancing girl press, Freeze-Dried Love from Finishing Line Press, and St. Cecilia’s Daze, published by Parallel Press. She also has two Pushcart Prize nominations and quite a few chickens.
Younger
than a Strad,
older than a yesterday,
the viola that is
mine—as if anyone
can own a sound,
carrying its youth,
its song,
within a soundpost
Made by a man who was soon
to go mad,
after Brahms,
before Piazolla
If I hand it to you,
don’t worry about anything but
the flame of her back,
the ribs of her waist,
her scroll’s deep secrets;
the arrival schedule of
madness is more fluid
than you think