Piano
These keys
of elephant ivory or alabaster
or whatever
against my fingers
are like my lover’s flesh:
whether I press hard
or softly
quickly or slowly
there is music
and even I, who am not
musical or adept,
can make sweet sounds
from time to time
without dissonance
I can feel the solidity
and the giving way
and so, I think– why not?–
of my lover, the music
I could make, like Goethe
tapping out hexameters
on his lover’s back,
simply running my hands
over her flesh
as if it, too, were a keyboard
and I, with my foot
on the pedal, my ears
to my own heart, were creating
the beating inside my own chest.