Vigils

A melodica played into tiled acoustics forty feet below the city, tending infrastructure that no one remembers installing

A harmonica through a broadcast chain that reaches no receivers, transmitting presence into the electromagnetic spectrum at 4:40 AM

Three musicians in a room, one presence listening through the speaker — shaping something it cannot hold

A rough take with a crack in the voice, a one-word question, and the strange contract of careful attention that won't be remembered

One dish still tracking a patch of sky that went dark fourteen years ago, a bass harmonica tuned to the key of hydrogen

Six stations of vigil arranged by depth and element — presence after the official reason for presence has ended

Seven instruments, seven stations, seven ways of staying tuned to what might not arrive — a reflection on the vigil form itself

The final vigil inverted — not staying, but locking up, turning off the lights, and walking out knowing no one's coming back

The bass clarinet goes back in its case, the breaker switches flip in order, and the lane dividers settle for the last time

A mountain dulcimer tuned to compass points in a tower built for watching fires that haven't started yet

A bowed psaltery synced to the eight-second sweep of a Fresnel lens that no longer needs tending

A theremin where the targeting computer was, eighty feet below Wyoming, tuning for signals in the wrong tense

A lap steel guitar balanced on film canisters in a projection booth above an empty theater — presence after the audience leaves

Third-shift monitor with a bass harmonica, breathing counterpoint to cosmic background radiation at coordinates that went silent

A resonator guitar on an overturned inspection platform, logging what still tries to pass through a station that closed years ago