Chord

Chord

By Stuart Dybek
Stuart Dybek (1942—) is a masterful short story writer as well as poet. The qualities that distinguish his fiction—a strong connection to place,


A man steps out of sunlight,
sunlight that streams like grace,
still gaping at blue sky
staked across the emptiness of space,
into a history where shadows
assume a human face.

A man slips into silence
that began as a cry,
still trailing music
although reduced to the sigh
of an accordion
as it folds into its case.