Mozart Requiem in D Minor
Halfway through the Dies Irae
an old woman rises from her box
on the second balcony and rushes out.
She feels the anger coming at her
from everywhere at once--as if she coughed
or tripped in the aisle, or clapped
at the wrong time. The rude ushers,
her seatmate, the sweating conductor,
even the mean trombone, pretending
to sing so sweetly. It is all so
overwhelming, she thinks it must be
God’s nightmarish wrath. In her rush
to escape, the insert from her program
sails across the room, rising and falling
on engulfing waves of music.
Not one person among the ripening field
of heads notices—scared they would be
missing out on something sacred,
too stubborn to raise their heads on high—
fearing the reaper. Only this woman
has heard the news, that God has it out
for her and there is nowhere she can hide.
About the Author: Leonard Kress has published fiction, poetry, translations, non-fiction, in Missouri Review, Massachusetts Review, Iowa Review, American Poetry Review, Harvard Review, etc. Among his collections are The Orpheus Complex, Walk Like Bo Diddley. Living in the Candy Store and Other Poems and his new verse translation of the Polish Romantic epic, Pan Tadeusz by Adam Mickiewicz. Craniotomy Sestinas appeared in 2021. He has grants from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and the Ohio Arts Council.
Image Credit: Friedrich Sperl Mozart performs before Empress Maria Theresa (1910) Public domain image courtesy of Artvee
