Ant

You've been spying on

David Copperfield

You've been crawling the pages of

The Great Blackstone's secret books

For, like Houdini

You appear

Seemingly out of nowhere

In the middle of the tile and grout sealed room

To claim the smallest morsel

Left on the floor

And me

With my superior intellect

Can't find

My car keys

Three Wishes

To be handcuffed to the

Truth

To wear love like a pair of

Glasses

To redeem this coupon called

Hope

Gershwin's Ghost

(Note: The Aeolean Duo-Art Weber reproducing piano was built in 1925. Through an intricate system of pneumatic controls, it eerily produced the expression of an actual performance by famous keyboard artists as recorded on perforated paper rolls.)

The arcs and swirls

Cap each leg

Walnut framed islands of relief

With flourishes covered in gold leaf foil

To draw attention away from

The instrument's secrets

By some hidden network

Of muscle and tendon

The black and white keys begin to move

Finger-like

He is here

Presenting his most famous

Rhapsody

It is his touch

That carves and gilds notes

From the walnut air

It is his pedal

That builds reverberant bridges

Between musical relief

And for a few moments

Even the skeptic finds it impossible

Not to believe