Riffing on Ellen Bryant Voigt's "Amaryllis"

Sitting in the parlor on the bench
at the oak piano, not playing
you understand, sitting like a fern
in theis formal room, my fingers
want to play the blues. Blues can't
be read, I've been told. This suits me.
The page on the rest hold boxes
and lines with more darkened bold
periods, flags of little black countries.
Aunt Jan fingers the treble
clef and tells me to run through
the bass. Every good boy does
something, I think. She says
spaces spell face but hers
has sagged around the corners
of her mouth from years
of dusting this parlor while her husband
lied quietly beneath
an oak on Poplar St., purple heart
on the hearth in the parlor where I'm
fumbling with the blues.