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Wendy French

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The Concert Pianist

 

for years
he played faithfully this b minor
                  he now taps on the windowsill
memories that grew with him

ebony finished steinways
iron wrought balconies champagne in intervals

bow ties
his mother’s smile
             looking up from her piano
and her photograph
always and still
             next to his bed

too young to understand
when she’d left he’d been content
with letters
                 envelopes

coloured stamps koala bears

but now this chord
always this chord (she’d played over and over again)
haunts his waking dreams
his sleeping hours

and tomorrow
two male nurses
                       will accompany him
as the minister takes him to the chapel and as it is easter

he will be
     triumphant allowed to play
passing through a mist of empty flower beds
this open walk will lead him

                                     to a god who listens to voices imitate
the sane and he will deliver a chopin prelude to a captive
                                                                       congregation
who choose    shuffling from locked wards to this resurrection

and days echoing that first cold morning

 

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