Laura Kochman in Coldfront's "Poets off Poetry, Song of the Week"
“Cello Concerto in E Minor Op. 85 – Adagio – Moderato” by Edward Elgar
Performed by Jacqueline Du Pre with the London Symphony Orchestra
I’m not really a fan of classical music. I grew up with it blasting through the house, my sister practicing violin in the next room while I was trying to sleep. It’s just not really my thing.
But I can’t help but keep this / the brown and white box of it / when the octaves rise I can see my mother crying and I cry. I have invented the story wherein she practices cello while pregnant and I listen on repeat / or maybe I have not invented it. I hang placental in the memory of these cassette tapes.
She died too young / she was too young / she never did die / my mother’s hand is shaking up and down the cello’s spine. At the center of the stage the body is shaking.
-Laura Kochman
---
Laura Kochman, originally from New Jersey, currently lives, writes, and feeds her cat in Philadelphia. She is an assistant editor for Coconut Magazine, and her work is most recently found or forthcoming in Parcel, Nashville Review, Sundog Lit, Ghost Proposal, and others. Her chapbook, Future Skirt, was released in the fall of 2013 from dancing girl press.