What Happened To Selfishness

for grandpa

 

& at last  when all my

ten eleven twelve-year-old selves grew up

ripened & died

clair de lune came whispering

the secrets of how to serenade

what a quiet  still heart could do

moonlight came

enchanting the days i had

shoved behind me & locked away

 

 

you loved that black & white music box

but i didn't

i looked at your pruned hands

weary with nights of dishwashing

how they spelled out each arpeggio &

i thought

how could you possibly play anything beautiful?

 

 

i know i was a selfish girl

you taught me how to save myself in water

sprint down a ski slope & understand my

ancestors’ brushstrokes  forming characters i

never quite cared

but you stole my sunshine afternoons meant for play so

i tore your lesson books in return

what was there to lose when  all along

i had been forced to learn?

 

 

we fought over my

holiday breaks

you won  as always

we spent christmas in the

bone-seeping cold of vermont

as i sat in front of the

blazing fireplace  wet & hungry

 

 

tired & raw

i reached deep inside of myself &

choked out the fruit of our years

underneath the same roof:

we would always be too cold, too bitter to

allow anything warm

& kind to grow—

what good came from two different hands

trying to play a duet on an

out-of-tune piano?  the answer was

nothing

but as seasons left & returned

we aged along with the earth

we let the land

fold upon itself   sleep

there  at the corner of the living room

the piano rested  waited

& years later

when a clear, soft french tune asked for

permission to enter at the gates of my ears

what else could i do besides

watch as it left my ungrateful ten eleven

twelve-year-old selves sprawled all over

in my heart?

 

 

the truth was

printed in chinese paragraphs

howled among frozen mountains

wrestled in water  embellished

in ink-stained music

hidden underneath barren fields

 

 

love did exist

it did it did it did

it did.