Clothes Make the Musician
Protégée, dear,
skip the brassiere
and bare your shoulders, toes.
Now hold that deafening pose
and have no fear:
Critics won’t hear
the burblings and mutterings
your bow makes on the naked strings.
Claudia Gary (www.claudiagary.com) writes, edits, and composes in the Washington, D.C., area. Her first full-length poetry collection, Humor Me, was published in 2006 by David Robert Books, and a second collection is in the works. Her chapbooks include Ripples in the Fabric (Somers Rocks Press, 1996) and Schadenfreud(e) and Other Occupational Hazards (Musings Press, 2004). Her poems have most recently appeared in American Arts Quarterly, Chronicles Magazine, First Things, Light Quarterly, Lucid Rhythms, Mezzo Cammin, Poet Lore, String Poet, Trinacria, Umbrella, and other journals, as well as in the 2012 anthology Villanelles (Everyman Press).