I wrote this poem to mark the way we continue to see a beloved who has died–in other people, in the way someone walks or the shape of a jaw. It’s been seven years and I still turn back, just to be sure, when someone has caught my eye for some little thing that reminds me of him. In that moment the possibility of him rushes back. In “Minor Chord,” I wanted to start with the idea of “if” (if only) to try to express the longing that comes whenever we see someone who shares that little piece of him–that gesture–and how this merging of stranger with beloved is like the merging of song and painting.