I press my fingers
over black and white,
each key clicks,
and I press more.

One, two, and no more.
My fingers move,
and press another two.
Sounds echo,
but I cannot remember their names.

I've played them before,
and so I continue.
There is a note I have not played,
the empty middle C
that I do not acknowledge.

The low keys thrum
under my fingers;
I lose myself in them.
The melody is absent,
yet the history is undeniable.

Some high keys respond,
some low keys refuse.
And as more keys resound,
they conflict and break.
There seems no way.

In the gaps that form,
in the sounds that fill the middle,
I understand:
some part of the C has always been
in his hand.

The melody plays on,
somewhere in the piano,
he sits.
Or I sit,
pressing the middle C
to bring to a close
this swan song,
this elegy of the man.