Proxy Poem: Piano Lesson

Out of heals dug firmly in

a groan explodes

Reverberating off bass strings

Ricocheting around the house

Annoying the mother

Exasperating the father

again and again

 

Dad try hard

gives best advice

girl rolls eyes and slumps harder

 

Metronome tocks

incessant in the room

Beating out the faults

And to teach a better way

 

Mozart and Chopin

made gifts

Grace notes, runs

and Twinkle, Twinkle

 

She has arrived

to show her stuff

 

Amidst the one one five five

of odes

to better and greater ones

swelling with juvenile intensity

and students caching yawns

and teacher

raining hellfire on group class grades

bound for recycling

 

The memory

in which she trusts

while sweating

perfectly good fingering

right off the keys

goes black

preparing to demolish

whole movements

one piece at a time

 

Out there with the remains

of her broken chords

is the one

the teachers kill for

heard at a master class

cherry picked

to come

right after

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