grand piano truck

There are eight pianos in the church:
an embarrassment of riches.

We have three baby grands, stepsisters:
one brown as old shoe leather, mumbling
in a corner in her tattered robe;
one waiting patiently beneath
the cracked dome,
a jilted bride who hums and preens
all unawares;
and the old-money heiress, reduced
to yearning for young, afluent hands
in shot cuffs;
she is still sleek, still supple
and subtle,
and laying in wait, she seems to submit.

We own four uprights, jolly aunts
raddled by Sunday School generations,
scraped and banging and tune-
resistant, telling their tales
of merciless wickedness.

We have a grand - the great bony dame
lounging amongst the cabinets filled
with sheets of choral music, crumbling.
Forgotten in her faded ball
gown, grown weak;
til resurrected and re-tuned;
resigned to plunking schoolgirls.
And yet, thundering unexpectedly,
like a whale, she wallows in the dim
fluorescent twilight
of the music room,
her heart an echo chamber.

Into their lives, the moving men
with mob-worn faces and union cards,
with hard forearms and rolled-up sleeves, they know
their women.
Easing the curve of an operatic hip
and the slender reserve of a delicate leg
'round the frame of a door,
coaxing them out -- the girls
will moan and protest
and gasp in their shame at the wide-
awake world; the moving men
who know too well
the damage done, will curse
and wait, light cigarettes
and wait some more.
And gradually, with much creaking complaint
the ladies will consent to be touched
and promenade
with elephant grace
up the gangplank to
Jerusalem.

may

outside the air is all lilac
and the inner thigh of the earth
is the promise
of resurrection
I hear the trains below
smell the backyard fires, no stars
and like the whore in love
resist the impulse

I listen, and think

oh, I will wait for you
to the end of my days
and sing my bullshit ballad
of your purity
I will lay down my Karen Carpenter
keep time
against the pulse of the hummingbird
snare, why do stars
suddenly appear?

in suburban alleyways
maternal mop and bucket
at my side
the night air smells of lilac
cats moan, trains throb
and I will keep time

the unknown choir

in the spring
or
at the spring
i cannot recall

the voices of those men in unison
playing their ungodly harmonies against my spine
so close I can hear their sinews
shivering
in the cold of Eastern Europe, in the careful
composition of state-sponsored culture
that has born unknowing
the ache of sex and birth, the keen of loss
in voice, in a simple air that leaves the mouth
across the instrument
of the soul.