Sidewalk Piano

Its days are truly numbered now
and for a moment I flare angry
that it’s been left flayed, denuded
Guts exposed as if for an autopsy or anatomy class
And I reflexively breathe “poor thing”

But then I see children
delighting in its erratic off-key plinks
Fingering its inner workings
and I suppose it could be worse…
It could have been left
rotting in a derelict house
unseen, unheard, unvalued

Surely once it filled a home
with its laughter and thunder
With hands that caressed it,
whether skilled or merely curious --
It had a family one day

**

It appeared on the street a few months ago
Still singing then, we became acquainted
It submitted to the indignity of paint
but still vocalized at my bidding

Then, bloating like a beached whale
in the humidity of a Maritime summer
through decision or dereliction of duty
it was left exposed
until dampers warped and hammers stuck
and its voice was all but silenced by rain and sun.

Quietly now, it awaits its fate
A mere decoration --
Giving only occasional plunks of joy
to the musically oblivious
with the discordance
of its dying breaths