piano

the raindrops are dripping,

drop by drop, like math,

like something measurable. a metronome --

and it is, a soft thud, a soft tick, a soft drop.

somewhere in florida, there is a metronome on an abandoned piano;

my hands remembered beethoven, my muscles remembered mozart,

my thumbs ticked out schubert, like a metronome,

ticking endlessly, in the background.

rhythms are a constant, patterns:

i am silenced by silence, i panic,

until i find the background noise,

and my choked-out breath breathes again.

mostly, my thumbs are frozen, my hands are frozen,

my muscles do not remember mozart.

but the raindrops are dripping, drop by drop, like math,

thudding and ticking. i chew my fingernails.

there is a metronome in florida, atop a piano,

atop a piano bench with my angry words scratched into it.

my hands have only played music indiffirently, but occasionally

there are notes that i love, notes that come from my hand, and i gaze at them,

curious: the music propped up against the cherry piano i was good at once,

the cherry piano i hated at the same time that i played, at the same time.

i don't like silence and i don't like sound --

only sometimes i like music,

the skeletal memories of piano i can't play anymore.

but there are raindrops in the background,

sliding, skittering, sketching things i can't descripe --

like a thumbtip, dragging a pattern down my window.

i stare blankly, and my thumb traces mozart, my thumb swirls equations on the glass.

i inhale, briefly, eyes closed, the math and the music and the rain circling around me.

my hands grope, and grope, and grope, looking for the metronome, the cherry piano,

i tilt my head back and i listen to the thuds, the ticks,

like if only i could find the metronone,

i might parse out the rhythm of my life,

the cadence and the music and the silences,

and make sense of it -- make sense of it --

make sense of music and the empty spaces between.