At first

it was only one note,

a familiar key
that seemed to have moved
during the night.

He blamed the piano.

Then the humidity.

Then his glasses.

Then the audience.

Then, eventually, the mirror.

His fingers,
which once crossed keyboards
like old friends

began asking directions.

Scales became negotiations.

The right hand
waited for the left.

The left hand
sometimes forgot
why it arrived.

He laughed more often.

Not because it was funny,

but embarrassment
is easier to carry
if you teach it to think this is a joke.

The hardest part was remembering
how effortlessly
the music had once appeared.

As if somewhere
inside a younger body

there lived a stranger

who could do impossible things.

One afternoon

he stopped practicing.

Just for that day.

The silence
was technically flawless.

Months later,
he opened the piano again.

His hands hovered
above the keys,

two old birds
uncertain
about the season.

He played one chord.

He heard something
he had spent decades
playing too loudly to notice.

The sound

of a man

still listening.