Without need of saccharine small-talk,

they can pleasure a stranger

or a lover,

strangle an enemy,

or a friend.

Some, sewn with satin

stroke Universes onto overpriced University practice canvasses.

Others are rough-hewn by coarse sandpaper.

Their calloused surfaces crack in layers like stiff dictionary pages,

painful, but begging to be rifled through.

Without mirth or malice,

they poke and prod a sickly child,

while a nervous Mother coos a soothing lullaby.

Their music is droning concussion,

terrifying,

but the most beautiful sound to an insecure singer,

or a student nobody believed in,

or a young writer

reciting his first poem to his aging Mother.

Not long ago, her fingers wiped bread-crumbs away from the corner of his boyish grin.

Now, his

wipe away her tears.