I play the piano in our sunroom
wearing my white sundress,
the shadows of furniture sprawling in
the evening sunscapes. It's a lovely old slow song,
one I learned off a sheet of music we found in the street
after the Homecoming parade the autumn we met.

I remember the first time we tried it out on your grandmother's old Chickering. Your sister pounded biscuit dough in the kitchen and I found a metronome in her kneading.
But the bittersweet score flowing from the piano strings was such
that we laughed trying to picture the marching band blasting out these sorry chords,
all weeping under their quivering plumed hats, the streets lined
with brightly-colored, stooped couples sighing and staring off into the sky.


I hear a stirring behind me and say, "Hello, darling" to your ghost.











But you're not dead, and we're both still young, just distracted and proud.


Earlier there clapped quick thunder and I tasted ozone in my nose.
The neighbors clanked about in the street in front of their apartment trying to start their old Mercedes. The engine choked and turned,
but not enough, and then the clouds broke and the man got soaking wet with his head under the hood.
His wife, only halfway in the car,
her bare legs two solid alabaster columns of running water, gazed into the alley
with a little sigh. Before long they became two gray phantoms shouting muted commands in the deluge.











Clack clack I can hear you slicing a new loaf of bread
in the kitchen over my ridiculous sports-tainted ballad. One night
you told me that when you flew planes you liked to nearly stall your engine on top of clouds, like they were other lands, temporal countries with no congested highways or crying babies.
Maybe that last storm carried you in and you decided to stay.

No, it's just me in the dimming light,
feet hard and freezing on the marble floors that
only make the high notes more piercing. As I stroke keys and tap cantankerous old pedals,
the phone stays silent and I never liked the thing much anyway.