Challenging Poetry

mistaken potential

one early memory,
my hand raised to measure
against my father's. you have
your grandmother's hands,
he told me, and I was glad.
you should learn the piano, he
told me.

grandma's hands
were long and gnarled. they
were part of a keyboard—she
could make a piano sing
in long runs and delicate arpeggios.
later, when age and dementia stole
her, she played her old favorites,
her fingers remembering the difficult bits
in smooth dancing, but picking out
easier passages with more difficulty
(the places she had never practiced)

not bad for a sight read,
she would say, and my father
nodded, not mentioning
his childhood memories of that same tune.
better unremarkable gains than
unremembered losses.

I never learned the piano
more than a child's fumbling.
I tried. I stretched my hands
to span octaves, and learned scales
and halting tunes that my younger sister
soon perfected.

after grandma died, my younger
sister measured my hand
against hers. I envy your hands,
you have a pianist's hands,
she told me.

no, you do, I told her.
I used grandma's hands for other work.

April 5—Potential mistake