Little Songs

by Leah Bobet

Our rules don't just restrict; they set the time
for parting, brushed hands, so our privacy
bears each gracile invasion. We're chary
lovers, crafting in harsh metre, tight rhyme,
the stuff of epics: shy, small and sublime
little songs. But all courtship's poetry
of form: to speak heart's truth, bound so tightly
to convention's our true art. And yet I'm
aching to refrain. We chose constraint;
but I have problems with authority.
You drum aphesis from me, and I defy
you to call this a little song, or faint.
Between this and aria, bold symphony,
strike rhythm. Stay. Sing me a lullaby.

Leah Bobet's short fiction has appeared most recently in On Spec, Realms of Fantasy, and Clockwork Phoenix 2, and has been reprinted in several Year's Best anthologies; she is also the editor and publisher of Ideomancer Speculative Fiction. She is a fan of urban gardening, public space activism, all things 1920s, knitting, silent film, hockey, and fabulous hats, and her first novel will be published by Arthur A. Levine Books in Spring 2012.

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