Wearing a Suit He Sells the Bells, Then Changes Clothes to Install Them
10 Jan, 2013 - David Hayward
That’s Beethoven’s something? Not anymore.
It’s the sound, now, of your whole life and of every visitor
who comes for you—flower holders, ditchers, Adventists
all made doorbell virtuosi by the same electric sequence
I wire. In no sense do they ring the bell. I ring it,
in perpetuity, by installing it here; it rings in me.
It will sound to you, one day, as it sounded to its composer
after a thousand times: tiny. Regard has no place
in production. Compelled to make it travel, he did:
finger to key to hammer to world.
Who comes for you won’t know this.
The fingertip will still fill the room.
