CW: death or dying, blood/bodily fluids.
This piece comes from a childhood of taking piano lessons. I switched to other instruments after high school, but I still remember how to read sheet music.
When grandma taught piano
it was trim your nails till there’s blood.
Her running to throw up in the toilet,
lighting up another one to get the taste out of her mouth.
Hell’s Angels uncles theorizing it was really
from living under the high power lines
buzzing three octaves below middle C.
I thought black keys looked like growths
in the pure ivory bone.
Reaching between teeth, afraid of the discordant
mordent, we leave red fingerprints on her livelihood,
dreading opening the sheet music
to see how many accidentals await
because the more there are, the harder the song.
I wonder if she knew how hard it was going to be
when the doctor showed her the final chart
and she saw how many shadows crosshatched
the grand scale spaces of her ribs.
I stopped playing when she stopped breathing
but if I ever put my fingers to the keys again,
will my muscles remember her?
Can I reach through the rows of white bone,
will I leave a mark?
Can I reach you in the same way?
