by John Grey
In my first visit to her home,
I’m shown into the parlor
by Emma’s lookalike mother.
What overwhelms my eyes
is a large shiny black grand piano.
Even more than the view of the lake,
this is the star of
the family’s extravagant show.
I can imagine myself
sitting on the stool,
in a resplendent tuxedo,
my tails spread behind me,
performing everything
from Rachmaninoff to Chopin
for the amazed enjoyment of her family.
Except, I can’t play piano.
I don’t know Rachmaninoff and Chopin
from Bryan Adams and Megadeth.
And I have this vision of Emma’s entire family
seated before that gleaming black grand,
their amazing synchronized fingers
caressing the ivories into some
high-minded, rhapsodic concerto,
designed to make me feel small
and talentless, inconsequential and forever
in the dominating shadow of my betters.
“Lovely, isn’t it,” says Emma
suddenly appearing in the doorway.
“But no one in the family
has a musical bone in their body.”
The piano lauds its superiority over us
and we’re both all the better for that.