MICHAEL SNEDIKER

Rameau

Twins don’t die,
they go to France.

And thus

we are in Paris. Moved, midnights, 
bone by bone.

We are like saints, in this one regard.

Rameau
fills theaters with our names, gives us words:

our story,
in a language neither of us understands.

How easy it is to say
that one venerates the object one forbids oneself to love.

Pollux
or Castor? We’ve lost track of our parts—

Every moment
that I breathe on earth

is a happy moment
I steal from his loving heart.

Castor or Pollux?

Or have we been given, likewise,
new names—

And this, only Acte Deuxième.

Rameau gives one of us a question.

But who is asking, who is asked?
Implications of which

darken as we learn about this Rameau:

all the charm, all the energy
of music

 is in the harmony; melody
being only a subordinate part,

giving to the ear only a slight and sterile
pleasure—

Who sings this?

The question:
Pleasures.

What do you. Want
from me.

Our names
no longer matter:

And thus—

no need to regard these
as real persons.

We may be real, but on the other hand—

they may be only the Dioscuri
over again.

Pleasures, what do you want
from me?

We are told
in a certain town in Illyricum
a temple—

perhaps of the Dioscuri themselves—

was turned
into a Christian church under the patronage
of SS Florus and Laurus.

We are told
we were found on a vase from Vulci

along with Leda—

one arm
a spray of flowers:

the other stiffening, the branch of laurel.