Like The Insides Of A Piano

I am the knotted insides of a piano
I sound how my guts are strung up
Sometimes elegant like the way antelope run
Or a wand of winter sculpting snow into drifts
Sometimes awful like bones snapping under flesh
Lost in mazes, squished under moving coffin lids
Rushing aimlessly, belching dinosaur dreams
Like antediluvian chants that never found their god
Or even a safe place or the right body to take respite
Or like the sound from a dying rabbit when I was 8
After my cousin crushed its skull against a fence post
Out of tune and off time and out of pace and place

I am the frayed insides of a broken piano
Once upon a midsummer’s still of the night
My pianist was a rapist with a gun to my back
My fall board breached and my lid forced ajar
I heard the ghouls’ smiles shuffling in the black
Clamoring for a first row seat in this dimly lit lot
Maybe if I lied perfectly still he will be done quick
I focused on just keeping it together for a better time
But instead I laughed through his impromptu piece
I wanted to turn his moonlight sonata into rhapsody
Or strike a wonky note consistently sharp or flat
Into anything else or just something unplayable

I am the insides of a lavish spruce grand piano
Resonating clouds purring across my electric sky
Despite feeling like a moving target or a statistic
I smile. I am not what you think I am or what I do
Both my names are prisons, rooms I can not leave
“Tranny” is probably what you are thinking anyways
I am the insides of a goddess glowing like the moon
Her voice coaxed out a naked raw no longer afraid
I can’t help it if my audience doesn’t get it or can’t hear
I play through the hisses, boos and the genuine applause
I’m the bridges, tuning pins and agraffs of a concert piano
Orchestrated and hidden like a soft serenade in the dark