“Because I’m older than your mom.” That seemed like a good answer for my piano student.
But she persisted, “How come your veins are so big.” Then, “What’s that little bone on your wrist?”
We were no longer playing the piano but comparing the differences between a grown up (much older than her mom) and a child. Did Kayla think that some day she’ll have gray hair and large veins?
She was conscious of the protruding extra bone that grows out of her right thumb. There was one on the left too but the doctor had removed it.
“Why didn’t they remove this one too?” I asked. She said she didn’t know.
She went on to comment on my tattoo, told me my favorite color was green, and that I loved flowers. She was right.
I reminded her we needed to get back to playing the piano. She put her hands nicely on the keyboard and began the five-finger exercise.
Image comment: The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore – piano lesson
Image credits: Moonbot Studios LA, LLC
A gentle moment of quiet observation… I love its simplicity, Clara. I like your writing best when it has this apparent simplicity and lovely unspoken layers. I think all your experimental writing is fun… but I feel your strength as a writer is found in YOUR voice… and you are at your best just there.
TEACHER, TEACHER
As we are multiply selved, so we are multiply old
Little boys
Fall in love
With their teachers
Little girls
Compare them to
Their mothers
“Clarantiquity”
Is sixteen years younger
Than Adelle and me
We think of her
As
A teenager.
(“Voice” is how they say “poetry” in Brooklyn: “I’ve written a book of “voice.”)
Lynn Werner said it for me just right.