Self Portrait

after a poem by Georgia Ella Lyons

Never was caught
peeling varnish off the piano
bench with a straight
pin,
her brother got the blame again

I wouldn't like to say
why. She loved Water Music
watching beings
in the levee water
under her microscope

She's thinking about riding
the world's ricketiest
roller coaster - it's
safer than practicing
the piano.

Ask a smooth-trunk
madrona -
maybe it
will tell you
what she wrote on its bark.

-Laura Gamache
March 23, 2006