I read the black, the white keys
like Braille, crawling finger over finger
through mysterious caves of sound, dragging
a dirt ball of sharps and flats. My hands
wear keyboards for gloves, tendons pulling
down octaves like writing on space.

Tones glide through muscles, up arms,
across shoulders into the old reptilian
brain, resonating back through time.
Back to the first womb-hand gesture
thumbing a ride on a contraction.

Was I born to the drudgery of scales?
The exercises of études? If it’s a learned
excursion between brain and body, what do I
pay for the life of a wanderer?

I’m fused – ears to fingers in a game
of sound played by nerve endings. Feel
the synapses snap shut, open, music dancing
through blood red, swift on its false feet.