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.