Pianola

The tracker bar sucks air through a hundred paper holes Somebody's fox trot from nineteen twenty-two My uncle pumps the pedals in his undershirt and socks And the keys go down for fingers that he never knew He bought it at an auction off a widow in Duluth With a crate of rolls she swore were worth a car Half of them were hymns, the rest Hawaiian guitar And one was labeled Mother, do not play Pianola, oh pianola Eighty-eight trapdoors set in a row He says the dead are made of paper And they only need your feet to breathe We unrolled it on the carpet on a Sunday in July Held it to the window like the x-ray of a lung A lacework punched out of a stranger's afternoon By someone in Toledo who was probably young Pianola, oh pianola Eighty-eight trapdoors set in a row He says the dead are made of paper And they only need your feet to breathe He threaded it at midnight and the spool began to turn The bellows filled, the motor coughed awake And all it was, a waltz in three Nobody left alive could dance it Pianola, oh pianola My uncle wiping his face on his sleeve He says the dead are made of paper And they only need our feet to breathe The tail end flapping on the empty spool Slapping at the wood until he let it stop