boy with piccolo
(John French Sloan)
Too pleased with absent-minded praise to let
it show, you carefully arrange your face
into a picture of the boy I met
outside my door, his collar turned up, braced
against the silent and unflattering street,
and you refuse to play again. The note
reverberates between us, dies. I see
it anyway: a quick and quavering mote
descending out of shadow into light
and out again, a grin you can’t conceal
that knows so much at such an age. When I
record you I will paint the pride you feel
as blush upon your warming cheeks, as thin
and dextrous fingers poised, a breath drawn in.