catapult magazine

Counterpoint

by Amy Carpenter-Leugs

I begin songs but falter on the words
You step in, sing wing with confidence
Every word available to your perfect ears
Meter melds with sinew and synapse
within you

You compile songs on silver discs
Like the village smithy hammer ringing out
The backbeats of people’s days

I speak of meaning
scribble on misty clouds
of transcendence

We bump in the kitchen at dinner
look at each other curiously though it’s
seventeen years together in July

Flatware clinks, dishes clatter
the children run by, screams of laughter
The chords fill out unresolved
but God, it keeps us coming