Compressed

by

Heather Aimee O’Neill

No, read the sign.

Inside, applause
like a symphonic song
infused with grief,

the never-finished arrangement steadily growing,

its own cohesive whole.

Celebrate the pleasures
of movement, textures,
<p class="indent200">climaxes,</p>
<p class="indent150">passages</p>
<p class="indent50">howling within the dissonances.</p>
The loneliness
of love rises

in the farewell,
meandering lines

separate,

strangers circling
one another, pried apart

under a microscope.

And in doing so,
a new harmony.

&nbsp;

<em>The above poem is an erasure from the following source text: “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/arts/music/schoenbergs-version-of-mahlers-song-of-the-earth.html?ref=arts" target="_blank">Mahler’s ‘Earth</a>,’ Compressed </em><em>By Schoenberg” by Corinna Da Fonesca Wollheim, The New York Times, MUSIC, October 26, </em><em>2012.</em>
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<td>Heather Aimee O’Neill teaches creative writing at CUNY Hunter College and is the Assistant Director of the Sackett Street Writers’ Workshop. Her most recent collection of poetry, <em>Obliterations</em>, is co-authored with Jessica Piazza and forthcoming by Red Hen Press. A recent Lambda Literary Poetry Fellow, her poetry chapbook, Memory Future, won the University of Southern California's Gold Line Press Award, chosen by judge Carol Muske-Dukes. She is a freelance writer for publications such as <em>Time Out New York</em>, <em>Parents Magazine</em> and <em>Salon.com</em>. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.</td>
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