I was trying to play the twelve-bar blues with two bars.
I was trying to fill the room with a shocked and awkward color.
I was trying to limber your shuffle, the muscle wired to muscle.
I wanted to be a lucid hammer. I was trying to play
like the first mechanic asked to repair the first automobile.
Once, Piano, every man-made song could fit in your mouth.
But I was trying to play Burial’s “Ghost Hardware.”
I was trying to play “Steam and Sequins for Larry Levan”
without the artificial bells and smoke. I was trying to play
the sound of applause by trying to play the sound of rain.
I was trying to mimic the stain on a bed, the sound
of a woman’s soft, contracting bellow, the answer to who I am.
Before I trust the god who makes me rot, I trust you, Piano.
Something deathless fills your wood. Because I wanted to be
invisible, I was trying to play like a woman blacker
than an unpaid light bill, like a white boy lost in the snow.
I wanted to be a ghost because the skull is just a few holes
covered in meat. The skin has no teeth. I was trying to play
the sound of a shattered window. I was trying to play what I overheard;
the old questions, the hunger, the rattle of spines. The body
that only loves what it can touch always turns to dust.
What would a mother feel if her child sang “Sometimes I Feel
Like a Motherless Child” too beautifully? A hole has no teeth.
A bird has no teeth. But you got teeth, Piano. You make me high.
You make me dance as only a sail can dance its ragged assailable
dance. You make me believe there is good in me.
I was trying to play “California Dreaming” with Jose Feliciano’s
warble. I was trying to play it the way George Benson played it
on the guitar his daddy made him at the end of the war. My lady,
she dreams of Chicago. I was trying to play “Mouhamadou Bamba”
like a band of Africans named after a tree. A tree has no teeth.
A horn has no teeth. Don’t chew, Piano. Don’t chew, sing to me
you fine-ass lounging harp. You fancy engine doing other people’s
work. I was trying to play the sound of an empty house
because that’s how I get by when the darkness in my body
starts to bleed. I was trying to play “Autumn Leaves”
because that’s what my lady’s falling dress sounds like to me.
Before you, Piano, I was just a rap of knuckles on the sill. I am filled
with the sound of her breathing and only you can bring it out of me.

Terrance Hayes