The Song

The Song

Every night the King, after supper,
Ordered the musician to step forward
And play his favorite song, which he’d heard
One night, as a boy, his mother, the queen, sing
When he was being fussy
And his father had finally allowed her
To come into his room.

A silence had to fall before 
The musician could begin. 
The chandelier dusty on the upper parts
Where the servants knew the King couldn’t see
Swayed a little from the footsteps of one
Of those servants treading the floor above.
The King quietly belched, white flecks of meat
In his beard. The knights silenced their armor
And the jester stilled his bells.

Solemnly, as they always do, the musician would begin
To play. He played the song through. He played it 
Every night and yet it was also somehow always his first time. 
When he was finished, after the applause
That had flocked the hall had fallen
At their stockinged feet,
Guards led the musician away
To the courtyard where he was killed
Because he’d played what to the King’s ear was a wrong note,
Or played the whole song too fast or too slow,
So the King had nodded at the guards in a way
They knew was as good as an order of execution
Because this was how it happened every night.

After it was over, after the servants had begun
Scrubbing the flagstones clean of blood,
One of the guards said to the other,
“I’m so sick of that fucking song.”