Sonata

"I know where you got your poetry from,"
she said. Sitting here listening

to some random pianist on utube
play Beethoven's Sonata in C Minor (Pathetique),

I close my eyes, and I'm back beside her -
small child again, nose to edge of keyboard -

watching her fingers fly, flawlessly,
far better than whoever I'm listening to now,

and I know she was right. The thunder flowed
through ivory and wire, through the very bones

of her fingers, and carved their echo in mine.