Maestro

1.
You have to find the words,” he says
“you can’t just use logic”
(because if the lawyer rips one link, the whole chain falls)
he pushes me aside,
puts his fingers on separate clauses
in the long contract
plays them like a piano
he doesn’t hum the melody ahead of the notes
as he scrawls the score in longhand
chastised, I listen for the new tune.

.

2.

Just a couple of weeks later, he stumbles around a six-week design-build contract like it’s his first year on the job. It’s not always so goddamned easy, is it?