Meditation: Rejection by Proxy

I poured my adoration for you into a hurried, handwritten score and sent it off to the publisher. It was rejected, he said, on account of the poorly-crafted counterpoint. When I received the publisher’s letter, I imagined the music lifted from the envelope with disdainful tweezers and transferred to an antique brazier of smoldering coals, and I laughed until I couldn’t breathe.