Paganini and the Powers of Darkness

She swore an angels’ chorus

swarmed her pallet bearing

sycamore slats for the belly

of her unborn son's violin.

When others claimed to hear

Satan's heartbeat in his sweet

tremolo, she remembered ebony

for Niccolò's fingerboard landing

like grace around her. It gleamed

with the Lord's truant light.

He said she was not to speak

of that, nor of his packer

father playing mandolin

to the rapt child curled

by the fire. She must lock

his early scores in a strongbox

under her bed. Let them believe

a demon composed the music

in blood. Let them weep

for the brilliance of his

fiendish cadenzas that flickered

like the tongue of flame.

An odor of sulphur rose

from the wings, sharp

as the whip of his bow.

Despite a hint of vapor

from below, no one stirred.

In a vault under the dark

stage he tuned his strings

to the devil's chosen pitch.

By shadow of candlelight, voice

hoarsened with cancer, he practiced

his sinister pizzicatos.

FLOYD SKLOOT