It’s never black and white.

Each note may wrap you in the skin of a newborn,

scratch at years with a harrowing call

or send you humming through the doors at work.

When she played, the piano sent time scurrying

to find hours that the day had lost,

pages that were never read and light

now dimming, losing centre stage.

A master of the keys was her doing

waking a night with the clutch of Brahms,

Debussy winding through each morning’s stretch

and another three hours packed with fingers alight.

For years it was always her

bringing the whip to my young hands,

a bleeding insight into notes that waited,

a battle to race with those elegant turns.

They’d stand behind singing words to celebrate

call on me to find music to cheer,

but all I felt was the sting of their breath 

shooting syllables into broken fingers.