Piano Movers

By MICHAEL CATHERWOOD

Two Men and a Truck are here to haul our
piano away to a nice woman’s 
house, who’s agreed to move it to own 
it, so her children can learn to play. An hour
early, two men in the truck pass a pipe
while on my open porch I read 
the sports page. I see ribbons of smoke peel
from the open truck window. The ripe

ember glows like a star and the stink
gathers on the porch like a nimble music.
Getting stoned to move an old piano 
seems like a solid plan. Actually, I think,
in the small world of moving pianos, a bit
of ingenuity helps to carry the load. 

 

[Purchase Issue 21 here.] 

 

Michael Catherwood’s books are Dare, If You Turned Around Quickly, and Projector. He’s a former editor at The Backwaters Press and has been an associate editor at Plainsongs since 1995. Recent poems have appeared in Common Ground, I-70 Review, and Pennsylvania English.

Piano Movers

Related Posts

an image of train tracks, seen through a window. reflection is faintly seen

Addis Ababa Beté

ABIGAIL MENGESHA
Steel kicks in this belly. // Girls with threadbare braids / weave between motor beasts and cement bags. // Tin roofs give way to glass columns. / Stretching as if to pet the clouds. // In the corners: cafés. // Where macchiatos are served / with a side of newspapers.

Image of a mirror reflecting another mirror.

February 2023 Poetry Feature

ZUZANNA GINCZANKA
I’m searching my thoughts for a man’s lips, to bind his arms in a braid, / When in the stifling sleeplessness of a second a sob breaks out— / —and now purse your lips and coolly, firmly condemn me: here you have my nights—bare, shelled like peas.