in the barn and the fields she is my daddy’s wife,
but in the parlor Ma is something different.
She isn’t much to look at,
so long and skinny,
her teeth poor,
her dark hair always needing a wash, but
from the time I was four,
I remember being dazzled by her
whenever she played the piano.
Daddy bought it, an old Cramer,
his wedding gift to her.
She came to this house and found gaps in the walls,
a rusty bed, no running water,
and that piano,
gleaming in the corner.
Daddy gets soft eyes, standing behind her while she
plays.
I want someone to look that way at me.
On my fifth birthday,
Ma sat me down beside her
and started me to reading music,
started me to playing.
She can pull Daddy into the parlor
even after the last milking, when he’s so beat
he barely knows his own name
and all he wants
is a mattress under his bones.
You’ve got to be something
to get his notice that time of day,
but Ma can.
I’m not half so good with my crazy playing
as she is with her fine tunes and her
fancy fingerwork.
But I’m good enough for Arley, I guess.
March 1934