Piano Player

Inside your room there’s 40 few
Remaining figures of new moons
To curve around your axle heart
In hopes that something new will start
They’re winding down they’re closing ranks
To rest another 30 days
You lay and watch them wax and glow
You hold them in your hand and let them

A kid half my age
Baby’s breath and meadow sage
Clutched in her hands like trophy game
Just like the wild world was tame
Was granted home and tender care
Into an awkward piece of ware
Three-quarters full or quarter-drained
And both adversely sure how long they will sustain

My eyes greet hers and hers do mine
And then the room becomes her shrine
An older ma'am sets herself straight
And then she smiles with 88
Remembered loves and morning suns
Until her woven heart was sung
Her fingers dropped like falling rain
The entire room awash with the sustain

You always said that you don’t dance
But then a heel turn to a shadow stance
I’m rung like sodden cloth
And the autumn leaves turn over
Across your floor, into the hall
And I’ve declined into a crawl
And you decompress and fall away
But this floor is raised on beams of trust
And there’s room enough for both of us, so stay
Sustain

Inside your room there’s 40 few
Remaining figures of new moons
To curve around your axle heart
In hopes that something new will start
The things you grow are set to die
You cling to them with knuckles white
So wind me up, to clear the floor
And I don’t know if I know love no more