AFTER

After the lights
turn into laughter
your small talk
hovers in familiar lips
by vapors of silences
here a cello plays
in a Schubert quartet
from a classical circle
of smiles in recital
from four hands
in a rhythmic greeting
of applause lingers
especially in a risen
dead soul at the back
of the concert hall
from a worn Gogol overcoat
who speaks in a dialect
that only poets
from Bely island
remember as we listen
to lasting piano notes
the time has a riddle for us
right at the counterpoint
of captured verse.