Benjamin James Lancaster

this is not my mother’s

piano. this is a dream

piano.

the keys are crooked.

the top is cracked.

the legs are hollow.

 

I step slow

to the piano and wonder

what sort of ground this is.

it feels like wet canvas.

it feels like sweaty clay.

it feels like pocketed chocolate.

 

I cannot read

the music book.

I kneel beside the piano-

shaped pool

in the shade of a cypress

tree and try

to play it.

 

I am wrong

to try.

it is not a piano

for playing.

I do not belong here.

a bird passes low.

a giraffe burns behind me.

and fingers painted

with dripping ivory

I tumble backward

into that cool

embryonic spring.