Piano Lessons

Sometimes the music is locked

in the earth's body, matter-

of-fact, transforming itself.

So our work could seem useless,

even tautological, as if music

were weather, as if there were never

practice, finger-oil on the keys,

dust in the curtains like the silence

that hates music, parents

to disappoint, small frauds the teacher is paid

to endure but endures for her own

reasons. But the garbled, ill-

believed hymns rise from the piano

on payments. And any God I care for

rakes them in and loves them,

though I don't want to hear

the jokes God makes to love them

unless I be one of those jokes.