It Is As If She Is Lost Poem by Gert Strydom

It is as if she is lost,
while on the piano she plays a fugue
and sick of arguing feeling like a rogue
she plays on as if she’s at an outpost

where living cost
do not matter and every colleague
do not scatter away, as if she has the plague
and she’s near to the end, almost

finished, when the phone starts to ring,
with its consistency shattering her peace
and she answers and listens to the chattering,
looking through the window to find quick release
from the building tension, she notices that it’s spring
and the voice trails on and on, like a spreading disease.