Piano

He played a song on a dusty piano
  in the depth of Winter dusk,
gutted out the bar
        for those who were oiled in sex and musk
   - not me,  
I stayed
         wide awake, eyes staked  
on him,
     a glass of gin to curb the edges
                    in the sorrow of his sound
yet I was bound to all the rich notes,
            to the many minor falls.
In a way he called my soul out
       and attacked her in an alley, left-side,
    - certain never to recover.
There were layers to his melody
     somehow I discovered secrets I had  buried,
         however wasn't ready to leaf through,
                wounds burn fresh and new. He  
turned the page
   in almost frantic rage, his brow  
                             deepened
as if rowing with himself  
                              inside.
  My face released a stream, a river of tears,
          as if years had passed since last permitted.
 
He hurled his stool back,  
his weight made it take flight -
stood as a valiant, wounded horse  
in cascading, faded beam.
I felt a fool, drowned too deeply in moments,  
too late to acknowledge the movement it caused face to face.
There was this deadly quiet  
in his wake,
as if the light that was rendered from me when he ended -  or perhaps
 
     when he began,
          I'll never hear again.