Adelaide B. Shaw
Give Me Entertainment
We listen to the radio. Go to the movies on Saturday afternoons. Have board games and books. In summer, occasional trips to the beach or the amusement park. And, we have the piano.
It is an upright piano and sits in the parlor in my grandparents’ downstairs flat. It is a dark reddish brown with even darker streaks throughout. Shiny. Shimmers in the sunlight. My sister and I are not allowed to touch it. Gert plays this piano. We beg and cajole her to play. Doesn’t matter what. It’s how she plays. The way her hands fly, faster, slower. The way the keys move without her ever touching them. The way her feet pump the pedals. Slowing down, a march becomes a dirge. Speeding up, a waltz becomes a polka.
Stacked on top are the rolls. Wonderous sheets of paper perforated with holes and wrapped around a spool. We watch as Gert opens the sliding door and inserts a roll. She adjusts her posture, her hands, her feet. What will it be tonight? “April Showers,” “Singing in the Rain,” “Toot, Toot, Tootsie,” “The Blue Danube.”
simpler and better
is a question I don’t ask
of then versus now
memories adjust by degrees
on a sliding scale
About the Author
Adelaide B. Shaw lives in Somers, NY. She has been creating Japanese poetic forms for fifty years. Her books, An Unknown Road and The Distance I’ve Come, are available on Amazon. She posts published work on her blog: White Petals.