Cobwebbed chiffon keys of a worn Steinway piano. 

Cobwebbed chiffon keys with a black cover, adorned with crisping ruffled roses. 

Cobwebbed chiffon keys and a charred, blackened fire. 

An abandoned house laced in history untouched. Awaiting reopening, sitting in wax. 

Sizzle of a match, new footsteps. Curious hands grazing a battered brown banister 

Prickling over a railing humming in history, secrets ignored behind fraying curtains.

A book cracked open. One the stranger will never know. It began with the wielding of wax, 

ruby roses, 

walls built of dreams. Climbing a mountain to mold a banister. 

Working till paper paid. Starting with nothing. She had her violin, he the train station piano. 

A cap and some music. Fishing for dollars, a dream dormant, wrapped in curtains. 

On the platform they lived, Piano Man wanted more. More than a muddied floor, dying fire.

The girl fanned his flames, was his fire, 

but a vision was calling him, the warmth of the present was dying, crying were the roses. 

No longer could he hold parched petals, fading faith. Grabbing the station banister, 

his chest cracked, pain bloomed. Composed facade breaking, burning eyes moist with beeswax. 

Money was short, yet dreams within reach. Why was hope always a closing curtain? 

A sound disrupted his doubt, “Gymnopédie No. 1”, on the ebony and pearl keys of the piano.

His maple eyes flicked back, there sat an abandoned piano. 

Was it a ghost? A sleight of hand? A memory? Who tampered with his roses? 

Revitalizing a splintered dream, it was a memory - his memory. Hidden behind eye’s curtains. 

As a kid, his father played the keys. Every night, the crackle of a match and burning candle wax. 

A breath of concentration, adjusting his metal-framed glasses, inhaling a fire. 

He said it made him think better and I’d tiptoe to the banister,

watching the graceful movements across the glazed piano,  

I spied in hypnotic awe, a dream blossoming, a rose. 

That was going to be me, cast from wax, 

Molding my fingers around the keys, scorched with fire, 

“an artist people climbed the stairs for” I’d dream. Gloves gliding up the banister, 

to a theatre, me surrounded by stage, encapsulated by velvety crimson curtains.

Bestowing warmth, a crowd enveloped in fire. 

That memory, whirred and stirred at my gears. Got them ticking again. I unwrapped the curtains, 

unveiled my aspirations, and let the soft sunlight flush the gathering dust on my piano. 

Extracting my story from the shelf, it was time to relight the wax. 

A reminder was all I needed. A reminder of my passion for the keys, my crimson roses. 

A mountain I scaled, a home I built, greats I topped. Up I climbed and never faltered. A guiding hand, ambition’s banister.

In an empty home, a song rolls off a piano, one I’ve heard before. Light remains from a drawn-back cardinal curtain. 

I wonder who left it like that, in a house that smells of fire and tastes of roses, 

I wonder who dripped wax on the staircase and left markings on the oak wood banister.