Duo
by Iain Matheson

I

Line up three violins in
Rio or Innsbruck

redolent of Eliot
vicious as oil-drums

riotously engineered
for oblivion

varnish vanishing like smoke
coiling from gargoyles

inscribing biographies
soluble in gin

II

Noon and the yellow
shadow of reckless
cellos like a tall
echo like a rhyme
made of light so much

unlike the zealous
bellows of children
lost with their souls in
enchanted places
of their own choosing