They say a boy who lives alone
Plays the piano to cleanse his hands --
As if without the wandering melodies
Which when heard first are without beginning or end
But melodic in a tragic sort of way --
His hands that grace the decaying ivory
May not be fit for eating --
Had he food to fill his silver platter --
Or fit for caressing another,
If anyone would look past it all, to care.

I have indeed heard that piano play,
Chill and deathly amidst the Summer warmth,
So that the happy bustle of a neighborhood street --
The children playing happily on the verdant lawns,
The teenage boys skating down the hill,
The grownups sharing lemonade and conversation --
Becomes and ancient charnel-crypt
From the pages and vision of a twilight-dream.

Perhaps it is, that the world is filthy --
Frightening, in its encompassing uncleanliness,
And maddening in its apathy to living life --
To which we could say, the boy cannot be blamed
In being so sadly scared, of touching anything
Before he could clean his hands,
In the best way he ever knew how.

But that is only what they say --
Strands of shadow passing through memory --
It could have been we heard nothing at all
On that fine summer day...
And it could have been, that the empty house
Where they say the lonely boy lives
Remains, just that: empty, soul-less, vacant --
Awaiting a new family to love it once more.

The lonely wind that blew was a solitary breeze
To put dissonance in the fine Summer aire,
Seeming to be telling us all something --
Hidden in happiness lies a tinge of the tragic,
Reminding us that: all thought all well be with us,
Somewhere there is lonesome suffering --
Bad dreams in the daylight.

I wonder if a song really did come through
The torn curtains in the sad window
Of an ancient house -- or if, instead,
It is heard in the mind but not to the ear,
The dream of living that still somewhere
Must exist, far from wherever
We laughed and smiled.

But still...they say a boy who lives alone
Plays the piano to cleanse his hands --
I thought of him as I washed own my hands,
This evening, recounting the story
That may very well have been true
Slowly and silently, within my own head,
As I studied myself, in the mirror...