Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


PLAYING SOMEONE ELSE'S PIANO by KAREN SWENSON

First Line: TOUCHING YOU / SLIPPING FINGERS BETWEEN YOUR THIGHS
Last Line: WHICH ONLY THE OTHER CAN HEAR.
Subject(s): MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; PIANOS; SEX;

Touching you
slipping fingers between your thighs
to hold the cluster of grapes
whose skin is frail as 5 AM light -
the stem thrusts hard from them -
I do not know how my hand feels.

Your mouth
gentle as a cat's muzzle at my nipple
your hand
brushing my brusque fur
to find the limpet of my sex -
they do not know how their feel touches.

Holding you
and as much held
each of us fingers a song -
the keys pressed black and white -
yet we are deaf to the chords of our own hands
which only the other can hear.



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