My mom gets the last word in this section
of poems, which feels right.
She often does in real life too.
It's called "Piano."
I held him together as long as I could, she says.
He stopped working, stopped coming upstairs.
He was like tissue paper coming apart in water,
like smoke in my hands.
It had nothing to do with you, baby.
You left when you had to.
I met a woman once who worked on pianos, said it was a hard job:
the tools, the leverage, the required ear.
I love it, she said, but it's brutal.
The second I step away, it's already falling out of tune.