a poem by paul hostovsky
My Statement
When they asked me why I stole the flute, I said
because it was beautiful,
leaning there against the wall like a spine,
seductive and gleaming
and within easy reach of my single
paid-for seat,
where I sat all alone admiring it
while the orchestra warmed up, the scales of the flutes
climbing higher than all the rest of the instruments,
reaching up even to the chandeliers,
where they seemed to be warning of some danger, of me perhaps,
for I’d already made up my mind what I would say
when they asked me why I stole the flute.
Then they asked me why I returned the flute and I said
because it hurt, it was that beautiful, that
impossible. It was sharp like a spine,
the keys at first digging into my skin
when I slipped it under my shirt as the lights dimmed,
then ran with it out the door and down the street and through
the night. But also, from the moment I lifted the thing,
I couldn’t put it down—wherever I tried
to stash it or ditch it, it stuck out painfully
like some herniated part of the body
of beauty, the inner beauty of the world,
secret and silver and singing out from the enclosure
of my desire for it. I couldn’t keep it, I couldn’t lose it,
I couldn’t even play it. So I gave it back and now
I only want to be believed.
Paul Hostovsky’s poems and essays appear widely online and in print. He has won a Pushcart Prize, two Best of the Net Awards, the FutureCycle Poetry Book Prize, and has been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, The Writer’s Almanac, and the Best American Poetry blog.