Her Fingers, Piano and Light

 A rewrite from last year.

Her Fingers, Piano and Light.

Her fingers on the piano keys: 

nails brighter, redder than rose-hips. 

                                                                                   

A net of cigarette smoke hanging, filled 

with the two of us and afternoon sunlight.

Room receiving the notes like a canyon;

momentary silences with flaring incandesence

                                                   

between fingertips, and piano notes again 

spill out like sequins. 

Brass and silver, mahogany, ashtrays and

antimacassars,

Liszt like a gold tooth;

green glints of sunlight from bevelled glass;

she smiles; the music twirls a cane 

with that jangly old piano aplomb,

fills the room till the walls fall away, and she 

with her deforming contours of smoke dissipates. 

I write to hold on,

but I may as well be catching steam.