Her left hand that played Chopin
at the faintest hint
hit my mouth as quick.
I sat next to her, fierce
with another lesson’s tears
and promised myself
never to learn enough to please her.
Using both hands,
she pried my fingers apart,
teaching me to strike
the three distinct notes
of my first chord. I wanted to play
melody, not harmony, so I banged out
unfelt phrases to feed her rage
and out of spite became
never more than capable.
Fifteen years later,
the night she felt her death start,
I wipe bits of her shit
from the living room carpet,
a pool of her mess loosed
by my botched colostomy bag switch.
She holds the hem
of her nightgown, filthy
tubes blooming from underneath
its frayed pink. She grins.
This is what you do with your Saturday nights?
“Apparently,” I say, a new
blue-flowered towel
drying in my right hand.
Then I startle myself
and touch her chin
as if she were the child
and ask if she’s afraid.
It’s close to 10,
and I’m still covered in
an abandoned house’s brick dust
from a job I didn’t finish.
I say I’ve learned a little
of what she tried to teach me
and notice a slight
red smudge on her chin.
She turns to me
as far as her tubes allow
and begins to answer
but it dies like laughter leaving a room,
like the hum of a string
struck by a felt hammer.