Piano

My sister was seven days in the cold ground
when the piano began playing itself,

a lonely ringing voice in the winter night,
snow-consumed howl of mourning

breaking the silence we clung to
like a life raft. My mother grew furious

and beat the thing as if it were a disobedient child.
When it did not cease, my father took a set of pliers

to the keys, pulled them like teeth
until there was nothing left

but a gaping grin and the tremendous weight
of an absence. Later, we awoke in darkness

as the wolves screamed hell into the freezing wind
just outside our windows.