Up the Staircase: Carol Lynn Grellas

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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

Carol Lynn Grellas is a Northern California-based writer, where she attended Santa Clara University as an English and Art major. Her Chapbook: Litany of Finger Prayers will be released in 2008 from Pudding House Press.