Old friend

Ivory and Ebony

It’s been years since last

they played together sweetly

a team of eighty-eight,

a clarion, a chorus line.

After all, they’re

ninety years old, their

bones brittle, their

teeth chipped, their

joints stiff, some ligaments

useless and dangling

and their poor neglected

underbellies are

unpadded and rub pain-

fully against their hips.

And still, their throats

earnestly ring

against the odds

against each other

beyond the sour day,

and still they reach

for harmony, a recollection of

a Christmas party

a friend’s smile at the door

a lover’s forgiveness.