WILL FESPERMAN

Missoula, Montana / Teacher & Writer 

Self-isolation
Will Fesperman is a poet and translator in Missoula. Currently he is collecting oral histories from queer people in Montana.

I’m in Italy. A man looks at me in a crowded bar. He invites me to his apartment. There are three pianos. I sit down at an unusually small harpsichord with three rows of keyboards and begin to play. It makes weird noises: whispers, clicks, gurgles, clinking of glass. I tell the man I’ll come back tomorrow to record it. Then I’m in Seattle. I walk into a basement. A woman gives instructions to 12 teenagers who were diagnosed with the coronavirus. Two of them are my former students. I notice that the ceiling is low. We were guaranteed six feet of head room, but it’s certainly less than that. I look at the woman giving instructions and try to count the feet between her head and the ceiling. One of my students is angry. Very softly, I put my hand on his shoulder.

(17/3/2020)