Ever since you first cracked
the lid,
arrayed your babyish
hands around the keys—
smooth and cool
and white and bonelike—
grasped that it was easy to play
pentatonic Lutheran tunes
in that hopeful
acolyte mode—it seems like
you've been
nothing but desperate
to leave—to run around chasing
the high of sharps and flats,
to bear the weight
of a considerably more labored
and much lonelier strain
of music
than: row, row, row your boat—let's
change the subject.
But listen: where are you now
other than stranded?
What have you been doing
but killing yourself for decades
trying the avoid
the place where you came from?
And which refrain
really sounds more cowardly now:
the one in which you
always stay
and only play
the notes that make you happy? Or—
the ballad of you
haunted and afraid
but dutifully going back home
to C Major?
