Tchaikovsky’s tchotchkes, cluttering up

Tchaikovsky’s office. By which we mean

the salon, its instruments, the vacant staves

waiting for semiquavers to swing from them,

like apes. Did Tchaikovsky crack his knuckles.

Did he flex his toes, constrained though they were

by stocking and buckle. Did he annoy

the local graveyards, local farmers – did he

irritate his neighbours, did they grumble

as he wrangled with overtures and pas de deux.

Did he suspect that his vocation might

have been a gamble, business hours spent

tinkering with scales, with refrains, with phrases

that longed to resolve themselves, simply. Did

Tchaikovsky contemplate his legacy, his rivals,

the lottery of reputation, did he wonder to whom

the honours would be allotted, in the end. Who

can tell us – who bore witness? The knick knacks,

of course, the artefacts, busts with their marble

cataracts, the listening figurines. They’re protected,

now, up on a high shelf or tucked into a vitrine

whose temperature is always pleasant. They’ve

been arranged alongside all the familiar debris

on which a genius finger might have alighted.

Are they delighted at the rapt attention they receive,

these inheritors, this former bric-a-brac, and

do they think about Tchaikovsky – do they

catch up and reminisce, the tchotchkes, now that

they’re valuable. Now that they’re treasures –

do they remember – are they grateful.