Oscar Wilde's Nightingale Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Two muses lived in our house
We fed them our hopes and dreams, my brother and I
They chewed us up and spat us out like phlegm

There were, though, days,
When his muse wasn't Oscar Wilde's Nightingale
When music skipped from the piano like an otter in the sun
Stopping to shake off notes in a sunlit spray

There were, though, days
When mine unknotted my hand
And image flowed over canvas free as that bird

Would you keep a Muse in the house?
Not as a fleeting guest but a permanent fixture
An androgynous someting, ruling the family roost?

A muse can twist piano strings
Can wrench theminto razor sharp barbed wire

A muse can cut out a heart
Pour paint in the holeas poisonous as lead

Two muses lived in our house
Eating away like cancer into our lives