'Thinking of my Piccaninny Days'

From the top of the piano
I glimpse him looking down
as I try, so very hard, to play
Scott Joplin the way he did.

A poor attempt, he would agree,
but I know he’d never admit it,
not in a thousand years; big softie,
as he always was.

He was young and dapper –
then; not even married. Grandpa
stands beside him at the swing.
Fifty years have flown since

and I notice how I echo the cleft
of his chin, and darkness
of his eyes...hair kind of wayward...
determined to do its own thing,
as is mine

and I muse how we two might
have been brothers, were it not
for the fact he knew much more
of time than I ever could.