J. Paul Dutterer

Jacques’s Box

In every music box
everywhere there is
a little man playing a
miniscule piano
(the same song always,
the same tinny little
ditty) to the delight
of the very young
and the truly old
until at night
with box closed
the little man
can finally
let his fingers
fly
over the
ecstatic keys,
playing the song
(title unknown)
playing the anthem
that is his alone.

J. Paul Dutterer is a Maryland-based author of poetry, stories, and music reviews, whose e-chapbook False Cosmopolitan was published by White Knuckle Press.