Hydra

A little girl hits the piano keys
by standing on her tip-toes
and reaching up to what she cannot see.
The piano is made out of red wood but
probably not actually from a redwood
those precious things already
make us music.

I punch at my reflection
in the plastic shield
on the front of a vending machine
trying to buy coffee but I can’t.
It keeps my dollar seventy five
and I receive no justice
when I call the number faded
on the side.

The statues of giant toads
sitting in the fountain outside
are disinterested in flies,
and I am unsure still
if they have poison skin.
I will not be the one to check
and get my feet wet.

I can remember being younger
and the feeling of the cold ground
against my cheek, and the heavy pain
and terror of the wind gone from my lungs
knocked so far out of me.

I was trying to be brave
and for that moment
after the bad joke
but before
the fist against my gut
I think that hydra
with the faces of my friends
might have actually
for once been on my side.