Piano Lesson
Under my palms are apples, skin red,
I feel their waxy blush as I hold them
in a tight but nervous caress.
I must not let them fall onto the keys
as my hands arch in a grip as they tip
over scales, throw arpeggios this way and that.
‘Have you practiced at all this week?’ she asks
with a ruler quiver-held on a crotchet
her swollen feet rest on the bar of my stool
enclosed in their thick sausage stockings.
My fingers pause then ‘Thwack’- they sting
all the way down to my green bones.
(from A Slither of Air, Indigo Dreams, 2010)
Alison Lock is a poet and writer of short fiction. Her first collection, A Slither of Air, was published as a result of winning the Indigo Dreams Poetry Collection Competition 2010. She has recently been working on a collection of short stories entitled, Above the Parapet to be published in 2013. She has an MA in Literature Studies from York St John University.
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