My piano teacher, Mr. Weissman,

            Who had lost a leg in the war and always wore a tie

            No matter how hot it was outside or in

 

            Used to yell –

            Well, yell is an exaggeration

            Because he never spoke above a raspy whisper –

            For me to play “slow as a glacier”

            When I was learning a piece

            “Otherwise,” he added with his ominous eyebrows

            Inches from my face,

            “You won’t get all the notes”

 

            Being from the city

            Where two trees made a park and three were countryside

            The closest I came to glaciers was ice cubes and the wish to be Cool

 

            But I gave it a go and the slower he tapped

            The more flustered I became until

            All I could hear from my fingers was mud

 

            And I couldn’t wait to go somewhere else

            To launch into the rhythm of a tune,

            Culminating points, as he used to put it, whatever they were,

            Be damned

 

            I thought about Mr. Weissman one day

            Years after I had given up the instrument

            When my words, the ones with heft,

            Just tumbled out at her

            Like a sudden rockslide after a softening rain

            And I felt her swerve

 

            I never could get the hang of a slow delivery