My Mother’s Piano I shut my eyes, and hear the close of a mahogany coffin. One barren breath- brings in the oil of yellow lemons that grace the lid of her baby grand. My arms tremble from the steady swirl the binding patina; her required finish. A wood-grained mirror displays the faces of lifeless relatives asleep in music when melody played and lived in the foyer. But I am alive in my mother’s piano, among bowed bodies, a family of ghosts. Yet no one knows my fiddle-back life my raindrop dream or how often I’m buried inside. ©Carol Lynn Grellas