The little boy loves his grandfather even though
the old man harbors a circle of hate in his heart
as red and round as the Japanese flag.
The grandfather will not buy the church
a new piano, even though he can, because the church
wants a Yamaha or a Kawai. There’s a committee.
The boy wants to learn to play the piano more
than baseball, more than He-Man, more than girls.
A woman in the church could give him lessons
but not on no damn jap piano, the grandfather
says, as if the keys were ground from bones,
as if the strings were cut from guts, as if
the harp might echo his screams.