An Apartment

Me, Jersey, Marco
We paid too
much for three rooms
One banister listed
The sink
wept

Some tenant left a piano
Jersey never played and I forgot
each of twelve year-old lessons
But it hung around
It was a cold fall

What happened was the
frost took our jobs
so we drank some
Marco hid in the mudroom
and we heard the first
notes
My worry was a bloom

“Marco it’s untuned —
Marco, the dead keys,” but
we had to dance
We saw the taut wire
and the throbbing hammers but

we had to dance