I kept telling my teacher that I don’t know this minuet. Only my hands know it, only my fingers and how they stretch the keys, the curve and pull in my palms. I don’t trust this paper of black chatter and now I’m up on stage, black bow starched tight around my middle, my feet dangling. Play, play I tell my hands. I try to avoid that wall of faces blank and waiting as my palms. My mother not even breathing. My hands stumble, heaving fish on the dock. All that music stuffed into my fingertips stares up at me, blurry eyed and dying. All of them watching. Until I stand fast and walk off that stage. Under waves of applause, my hands hang heavy. My mother runs after me to tell me she is proud of my poise. Laughter is a fishbone small and fragile in my throat.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 27, Issue 2.
Melanie Figg is the author of the award-winning poetry collection, Trace, and a recent National Endowment for the Arts Fellow. Her poems and essays appear in Hippocampus, RUMPUS, Colorado Review, Nimrod, and dozens of others. A certified professional coach, Melanie teaches writing, offers writing retreats, and works remotely with writers.
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