Piano Lesson Poem by Caroline Misner

The round notes eat these humble associations,
their clangor rising in off-key mist
like the voices of tired old women in hats
of straw, improbable in their perfection.

The metronome claps its steady thunder
into the sunbeam threaded through lace;
the cuneiform of notes are gouged
like dead black worms upon the page;

these symbols mean less to me
than the temple engravings of Babylon,
a language I could never comprehend.
Little tongues of music float

like pink balloons, funneling assertions
through hollows in the air; each quivering
finger fumbles for each note, the keys
gleam back like broken teeth, shadowy smiles.

Melodies meld into the hours, laughter
echoes with each reverberation; love
is music, like everything else,
but I could never get it right.