Each night it gets up to attach
the stylus to the nib, to hold it right.
Down to the river it slides, where

I’ve never been, it goes without me.
Lies, lately I’ve been there but cast it on
my chair to go, my legs making

light of my back when I hoisted, total hoot.
I’m sick of it but it’s sicker, leaf-keeping
maple, brushing its teeth under bluff

and threat. Only I have seen that swallowed
golf ball, orthodontists canalling
Mom’s wrong root, Sophia waking

up this way, sobbing, rolling the abscess ear
to ear, wise music for piano, the first note coming in
wrong, a prodigy of music, penmanship,

words. The ghost boat hotel soaks the radioactive
bank where one of us picks up a dead light,
mangled ore. From its face bucks a little 

pearl crown. From the bottom row, a wiry
permanent tiara. And it’s the color of cinderblocks,
brushed gravel, or me, the same wiry little man.