Undivided Attention

A grand piano wrapped in quilted pads by movers,
tied up with canvas straps - like classical music's
bithday gift to the insane -
is gently nudged without its legs
out an eight - floor window on 62nd street.

It dangles in April air fromt eh neck of the movers' crane,
Chopin-shiny black lacquer squeares
and dirty white crisscross patternes hanging liek the second-to-last
note of a concerto played on teh edge of the seat,
the edge of tears, the edge of eight stories up going over, and
I'm trying to teach mathe in the building across the street.

Who can teach when there are such lessons to be learned?
All the greatest common factors are delivered by
long-necked cranes and flatbed trucks
or come through everything, even air.

Like snow.

See, snow falls for the first time every year, and every year
my students rush to the window
as if snow were more interesting than math,
which, of course, it is.

So please.

Let me teach like a Steinway,
spinning slowly in April air,
so almost-falling, so hinderingly
dangling from the neck of the movers' crane.
So on the edge of losing everything.

Let me teach like the first snow, falling.

By: Taylor Mali
http://www.taylormali.com/