practice rooms and computer labs are both poorly-lit

sitting dumbly at an upright piano
in a room too small to slouch
and where every wrong note
has four cinder-block walls off of which to
bounce, refract, and amplify
the slowing reflexes of hands
that are losing touch with the key of D-flat major

double-octave scales are shedding themselves
from these hands that have lost grace
but have gained the strength to hold open
a 500-page hardback book
and to type
all at the same time.

which keyboard is the right one to carry along
the movements of the deepest inquiries,
to decide what can be said in words,
and what could never be uttered by any lips,
save the mouth of God alone?