Spare Piano
by Sally Molini
The town hall Chickering
is on its last rosewood leg
but I play anyway,
two weeks in a small town
where relatives argue
and kitchen racks hold
more guns than spice.
In a building like this, empty
and seldom used, my mind
can stretch in space
no one claims, Moonlight
coaxed from old rollercoaster
ivories, music as dash of
tenderizer for a tough holiday
visit. Locked arm in arm,
the seats listen back,
remember the body's embrace,
the press of scent and fabric.
And the musty balcony,
always last to fill, leans closer,
catching a sharp-cornered
phrase that prisms the room
but not for long, each note
vanishing into the ceiling's
rain-stained, calloused ear.
Sally Molini's work has appeared or is forthcoming in such online journals as Mad Hatters' Review, Boxcar Poetry Review, Tattoo Highway, DMQ Review, and Eclectica, among others. Print journals include 32 Poems, Calyx, Best New Poets, Southern Poetry Review, Margie, Salt Hill, LIT and elsewhere. She is a graduate of Warren Wilson College's MFA Program and lives in Nebraska.