Listen. There’s a music in your head

that is not some half-remembered bar

of radio confection. No ear-worm, this.

No broadcast soaked up by the soft

core of childhood. It sits among synapses

as a code of scars, a morse-mapped monument.

This music is made from the friction of living;

birdsong; the passage of light at a certain

time of day; the first touch of another’s skin;

that moment when everything seemed exact.

Built upon pain and plenty, this concentrated

sound is everything you know and understand

tuned up to ecstasy. Written and unwritten

in the key of hope. Yet it is not complete.

Now, having listened, you must sing a tender

approximation of the tune (as sweetly as you can)

until all the people who have helped it build

are drawn to you. Then you must dance.