Oscar Wilde's Nightingale

Two muses lived in our house We fed them our hopes and dreams, my brother and I They chewed us up and spat us out like phlegm There were, though, days, When his muse wasn't Oscar Wilde's Nightingale When music skipped from the piano like an otter in the sun Stopping to shake off notes in a sunlit spray There were, though, days When mine unknotted my hand And image flowed over canvas free as that bird Would you keep a Muse in the house? Not as a fleeting guest but a permanent fixture An androgynous someting, ruling the family roost? A muse can twist piano strings Can wrench theminto razor sharp barbed wire A muse can cut out a heart Pour paint in the holeas poisonous as lead Two muses lived in our house Eating away like cancer into our lives