The Old Spinet
Always a half step flat,
my childhood spinet
saw me through my first
sonata by moonlight,
my first impromptu kiss.
I riffed on this
diminutive piano —
small soundboard
and short strings fine
for starters, until the baby
grand would surely
take its place one day.
It followed me everywhere —
from Queens
to Silver Spring.
The other pianos came
and went, like exes:
a Sohmer,
a Bösendorfer,
a Yamaha Disklavier
leaving me honeyed tracks.
My Winter Musette
played on, faithful
to every season,
even when my daughter’s
Steck baby grand arrived.
Soundboard warped,
its keys were misaligned
like my spine — vertebrae
shrinking each decade
like sea-ice.
This year’s bone density scan:
the machine’s hum breaking
over my lumbar region,
its meaning leaving no doubt.