PIANO

My mother was a small woman with small hands

So the piano and she were never a good match.

Still, in her day, a well-off watchmaker --

The sort who owned a car in the Depression --

Might deem his house unfurnished without a wife

And children and a piano. His first wife died

Bearing his first daughter. His less-loved second wife

Brought a piano with her, and her parents.

(Fanny's unexpected marriage didn't release her

From her spinster's job of caring for them.)

After a few years, a second daughter appeared.

How surprised my grandfather was,

How stunned, how bewildered, that giving his eldest

Food, shelter, a stepmother, a piano and a half-sister

Was not the end -- not even nearly the end

Of the responsibilities he'd somehow acquired.