The Piano Tuner

The Piano

Once, manic, I bought a piano
I couldn’t play.
The man who sold it to me
Drove two hours once a year
To tune it, the only time
It ever got played. 
He brought a woman with him —
Not his wife, a friend, I think —
Who liked talking to me
About poetry. 
The long silences
That would have deepened
Between her questions
Were filled by his tuning.
He would play one key
Again and again
Until it sounded right.
In this way, even when
We weren’t talking 
We were talking 
About poetry.
And when he was done,
He’d play something
Light and fast
The way a barber runs his hand
Through a boy’s fresh cut hair.