Growing Wise by Jennifer Barizo

Growing Wise

by Jennifer Barizo

Alone with ivory, Beethoven and medicated muscle salve

I am left to spend ten-year old summers on my own

Seventh grade and I learn to keep doors closed,

atune myself to 440, know toccatas by heart. Things

fall away, like junior high preoccupiation

with boys, scented lotion and teen magazines --

all talking of love. I know these things, because

even with panes shut tight and the perfect pitch

of my father, crowding all, I can still hear

as far away as New York City, London maybe,

Toronto, for sure. Where did the years go,

doors shut, fingers on the keys? The world

wasn't ready for me yet and all I could face

was the amalgam of those notes, speaking

in ways I could only know. I wondered if

anyone else understood those same, still songs,

Perhaps only I heard them speaking - stir me,

soothe me, show me home.