“We’re
doing a show at the school in a week, Billie Jo.
Come play with us.”
If I asked my father
he’d say yes.
It’s okay with him if I want to play.
He didn’t even know I was at the piano again till the
other night.
He’s making some kind of effort to get on
better with me now,
Since I “did him proud” at the Palace.
But I say, “No.”
It’s too soon after the contest.
It still hurts too much.
Arley doesn’t understand.
“Just practice more,” he says.
“You’ll get it back,
you can travel with us again this summer
if you’d like.”
I don’t say
it hurts like the parched earth with each note.
I don’t say,
one chord and
my hands scream with pain for days.
I don’t show him
the swelling
or my tears.
I tell him, “I’ll try.”
At home, I sit at
Ma’s piano,
I don’t touch the keys.
I don’t know why.
I play “Stormy Weather” in my mind,
following the phrases in my imagination,
saving strength,
so that when I sit down at a piano that is not Ma’s,
when everyone crowds into the school
for Arley’s show,
no one can say
that Billie Jo Kelby plays like a cripple.
March 1935