Hold Music

Her hands clutch the cell phone and
fiddle with the corners of the case.
Feet fidgeting under the desk, stuffed into socks and shiny flats.

She did not ask her phone to bring her an orchestra,
did not order its overture for her office or invite it in the door.
It is somehow blind to the colorless room and the fine print and the Do Not Disturb sign.

It’s not like she even wants this call to start, really,
but it feels strange not to be working,
to simply sit at her desk and be serenaded by some forgotten symphony.
She counts the minutes of focus this will lose her and the lost time begins to weigh on her like drying cement.
She can't shake it as it suctions her into her seat and plants her eyes on the screen.

But her ears are elsewhere.
The notes are kind of soft and pensive and it sounds like her mother’s whisper or maybe like a cat. Gentle.

It feels risky to compliment a distraction.

She opens a document on her computer,
but the clicking covers up the cellos.

She pulls out a pencil to plan what she’ll say
but its scratching is offbeat, out of place with the percussion.

She tries and tries to focus but it
forces her to forget this
unfamiliar tune, so she just
closes her eyes and
listens.

The guilt comes, but she ignores it.
It doesn’t match the melody.