Mozart Rushes Back to Munich to Propose

[BobBradshaw]

Mozart Rushes Back to Munich to Propose

Alone in Paris, I pined for her for months.
Now that I'm back in Munich

Aloysia ignores me, as if I am merely
one more bird in a pet shop

filled with singers, starlings, parrots
looking to repeat whatever she says,

to preen and nod only for her.
In my scarlet jacket with gold buttons

I once was a flamboyant flame,
her bright red macaw, my voice

the only one she sought out. Tonight
she doesn’t have a crumb of kindness

to sling my way. Silence welcomes me
as she flutters from one suitor

to another. I answer
by flinging myself down

onto a piano bench, singing defiantly
my indifference to love gone

--while she wanders away, cocking
her pretty head towards anyone

but me. Years from now my eyes
will fill with tears at the mention

of her name and this evening.
It will be as if my heart then

were a bird singing to a night sky
with only one star--Aloysia,

cold and unfathomably
distant.