He is playing the black coffin.
Its keys grin and try to bite.
When he looks up from Beethoven
his mother stands at the far end
of the room on a dolly,
and then she rolls up
over the bare oak, hair disheveled,
eyes struck with grief.
She carries letters,
the old sheets of his first love,
stained by his thrust and groan.
The creak of slow wheels,
the sawing hands with their fluttering packets
raise a new kind of music.
Through the falling serpents of her hair
she hisses Promise O
promise me that this
won’t come to pass again.
He shakes his head
but his groin turns to stone.
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