FINGERS ON THE PIANO KEYS

by Lana Bella

You still miss me from the time:
I drew upon your lips with my whiskey-
laced fingers;
the fingers that I'd danced across smooth
dual-toned piano keys,
to the tattooed flesh with engraved beast
on the strapping bicep.
Your breaths came through heavy and sweet
stirring gone the cigar smoke,
so close I could taste your frothy scent.
You leaned toward, both arms resting
on the console grand,
where throbbing veins ached rhythms of
the briny sea.
There, at the scarred shadow of your funny bone:
clear echo of painted ships
and pine-knot smokes,
a well-dressed suit of slate-flawed skin;
dusky light swept gold the blunt-cut fingertips,
slow whirl of the ceiling fan skimmed across
your brown hair cool.
Into the whiskey-varnished air and against
the wisps of smoldering mist,
my fingers flirted with the familiar refuge of octaves'
crunched desire
upon the ivory white and charcoal black
keys of the piano.