Middle aged, he sits in a small room remembering
the Medici’s and their magnificent schemes, hears artisans tapping colossal stone, knows mankind needs sewers now
and someone has to stop
the shrinking of the world
He swelters in a corner apartment reeking of neighbors over an avenue of tuberculous cars, knowing
there’s a wise man somewhere on a cabin porch
overlooking a stream
and a coloratura on every pine, slides to the floor of his crowded room, crawling under three pillars of an heirloom piano
and praises the solid finish of its woods, knowing its dome
conceals hammers and strings
and the nocturnes of immortal minds
In that small room under a baby grand that’s built to last, he mourns
the loss of majesty and the death of kings,
knowing there are little girls in doorways
and legless men on cardboard
begging a daily pence
He climbs from under the baby grand to a kitchen chair,
imagines himself, one who could never play anything,
playing a frenzied Mozart, a startled Brubeck,
in the chaos of a civilization pounding worn keys
on a piano out of tune on a dull linoleum square