Musical Family: A Sonnet

For me, it is the minor key perhaps

solitary cello, hollowed by grief

an oboe’s piercing candor, sorrow’s thief

echoing my heart’s melancholy maps.

For him, a thickness, tense with anguished strings

gnawed voices interwoven, dense with brass

flute’s watery hysteria floats past

on somber seas of agony it sings.

As for my little boy, he begs of me

pleads for a rough song, mommy, raucous drums

I feel rough inside, he says, and so

guitar’s rebellious twang, so let it be.

Something to fight against, an urge that comes

from deep within, believe me child, I know.