Musical Chairs

Only the one is
musical, actually.
The others are
ordinary, mostly
from the kitchen.
Not a peep of
music out of them
as they are taken
from rotation. Mum
chairs, tuneless
racks, dumbsticks,
next to the
escalating operatic
ravishments
of banishment
sung to the children
by the one chair
absent.

—Kay Ryan

Kay Ryan’s new book of poems, Erratic Facts, will be published by Grove in October 2015.