There was a pianist once who, one
morning, awoke to find her fingers fallen
off while she dreamt of white
shoelaces and a screeching lost
in a shopping mall. She healed
quickly, learning to play with her palms,
but they, too, soon broke away from her
arms so she pounded on her wrist-nubs
a melody which provoked the atonal in her
house. But her toes also felt bound
to leave as well as her heels. And so she
sustained her depravity with a bloody ankle
until her calf longed for the ball of her foot.
Still needing to be heard, she plunked
the ivory with her tongue. The tune tasted
like lemon, though in between the keys
there was a hint of honey. She lay on the bench,
her cheek imprinted with a silent half cadence.
She decided to bleed her last inside the cherry
wood instrument, where hammers and strings
could choose not to piece her back together.
Contraposition 