“‘Con Espressione” by Natalie Schriefer

NATALIE SCHRIEFER

Con Espressione

I’m sorry I seem callous when I ask for D and you plink G, but if my mother hadn’t told you I used to play, I wouldn’t have, either. We share the piano bench in her living room, thighs touching; open on the rack is a canon— too difficult, too stifling.

You wait for my instruction.

Sharps and flats, notes and chords, those I can teach you, in time, but expression is what captivates an audience. It can’t be taught—we can only respond, musically, to the pain we’ve experienced. If I hadn’t quit, I’d play for you, eyes closed, each note articulate and haunting. You, on the couch or by the door, could tease out the meaning—

but instead your thigh is warm and I hate the way it reminds me of summer, this time my family drove for ice cream—classic rock; crunching gravel; me, at the farm, between my parents, close enough to reach them both,

years before their fighting diminuendo-ed into the thud of Dad loading boxes into a van, the reverberations dampened by the house wall between us.

I can’t teach you anything.

Your fingers search for middle C. Full of infinite impossibilities, the octaves extend on either side of you—and I wonder what sort of music you might make.