Home is a perfect place to get away from the world
It is what I expect heaven to be like
but I get bored easily
and wonder what I am going to do next
I run my ambition past my mother
She is 71 and tells me that I am in a good place
“Just stick with it.”
Most of the time I am melancholy
and I question myself
but there are times when I feel like a god
and my mother always tries to bring me back to earth
she succeeds, like gravity, or some stabilizing force
but I want to stay in orbit
Now
I’m playing her old piano
she is always trying to sell
She moved it outside
and the ivory keys came unglued
You have to pound them
to make any sound
and four keys
won’t play
People come around
to look at the piano
Never for themselves
but always for a friend or girlfriend
“Will you move it for us?” They ask.
“No,” my mother says. “You have to pick it up.”
They never call back
And I keep playing it
into the dim hours
People walk our street
and I know they’re listening to the sound
Chopin
Titanic
Downton Abbey
Mozart
But our hedge divides us
from the neighborhood
and I can hear their feint footsteps walking away
The emotion in the music makes me feel intense
passion grips me when I play certain measures
when the Titanic is sinking and people are drowning
or when the colonial forces are fighting the British in an epic battle
I’ve always liked movies
I raised myself with them
I keep pounding the piano
I want to exist
My mother spoke to our neighbors yesterday
“Do you want to have our piano?”
“Why?” They ask. “It makes such beautiful music.”