Listening to my own listless heart beating & you
beside me I discover we are minor seconds apart
tragic-chromatic   but if subtle harmony does exist
it’s a three-year-old playing fists   palms & elbows
we manage to stay out of each other’s way mostly
save for collateral clashes/catastrophes: collisions
& rhythms? look at this ventricular wall I put up
meaning: I stay regularly irregular    (always on time)
not jazz or syncopation   but syncope   synecdoche:
tickling the ivories    ‘you are the music until the music
stops’ & with the train approaching the boom-gates’
chiasmus suggests crossed purposes         my piano
teacher’s arm reaching across me        she played the
C# and I the C   our fingers almost touching when
she said    ‘that’s it there, you’ll never forget it now’