In a time that boys
give their girls roses,
try not to make them pregnant,
and Ike tours small Iowa towns,
his speeches lulling corn-fed
crowds, I grow up

at the Mission Covenant Church.
My dream is to play
music like wind
carrying away the congregation.

One evening I sit at the piano,
wearing a new cotton dress
the color of the western sky.

I begin to play.
My 12-year-old hands sprout wings.
I build empires with chords,
make melodies serene as plainsong.
When I finish, the elderly ladies
in the back row gasp, and whispers
spread like a breeze
over cornstalks.  But later

In a time that boys
give their girls roses,
try not to make them pregnant,
and Ike tours small Iowa towns,
his speeches lulling corn-fed
crowds, I grow up

at the Mission Covenant Church.
My dream is to play
music like wind
carrying away the congregation.

One evening I sit at the piano,
wearing a new cotton dress
the color of the western sky.

I begin to play.
My 12-year-old hands sprout wings.
I build empires with chords,
make melodies serene as plainsong.
When I finish, the elderly ladies
in the back row gasp, and whispers
spread like a breeze
over cornstalks.  But later

a fever of stage fright
rises in me, beating
its wings in my chest,
my hands out of control
like a wild colt in slippery mud.

Years pass before music
is a whole house I inhabit,
my audience travelers passing through,
my life for them to view—
a girl just been kissed.