“Rubato” by Ellen Bryant Voigt

Ellen Bryant Voigt’s “Rubato”  is featured in the Kenyon Review:

1.

For the action: hammers of walnut—nussbaum, “nut tree”;
the pinblock, hard-grained beech;

the keyframe, oak; the keybed, pine;
the knuckles, rosewood. In the belly, to ripen the tone,

maple, mahogany, and ironwood,
also called “hornbeam.” The soundboard

spruce, best ratio of strength to weight, once split
not sawed, strip after narrow strip,

one-ply like the back of a cello, pressed together,
over which the struck strings quiver.

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