My Grandmother's Piano

My grandmother had an old upright piano, just sitting there

in the corner, rising above her chair. It’s once white keys

were aged to a pale yellow and chipped, as was much of the piano

itself, chipped and cracked and out of tune. I don’t remember

her ever playing it, no classic piano tunes pounded out at family gatherings

or soft strains played when she thought no one was listening,

no romantic waltzes or Beethoven’s “Fur Elise,” not even Christmas

Carols for the holiday sung around the piano; no, the only music

played there was the plink and plunk of grandchildren’s fingers,

chopsticks, or hands mashing the keys to make a noise, hardly melodic.

We didn’t care. We played and sang the songs we knew, tunes

we imagined we were playing to match the words we sang,

for none of us had yet started piano lessons, not a prodigy among us.

We never questioned it being there - it was just always there growing up,

like Gram, there in the corner watching us from where she sat.

Kept polished with the rest of the furniture, it was a place to display her family,

wedding pictures and us, the grandchildren, old black and whites, snapshots

and formal colored portraits arranged atop the piano, the music played

but the buzz of her family on a Sunday afternoon, a holiday gathering,

the only music she needed as we danced around her for attention.