The brown wrist and hand with its raw knuckles and blue nails
           Packed with dirt and oil, pauses in mid-air,
the fingers arched delicately,

and she mimics him, hand held just so, the wrist loose,
           then swooping down to the wrong chord.
She lifts her hand and tries again.

Drill collars rumble, hammering the nubbin-posts.
            The helper lifts one, turning it slowly,
then lugs it into the lathe’s chuck.

The bit shears the dull iron into new metal, falling,
           into the steady chant of lathe work,
and the machinist lights a cigarette, holding

in his upturned palms the polonaise he learned at ten,
           then later the easiest waltzes,
etudes, impossible counterpoint

like the voice of his daughter he overhears one night
           standing in the backyard. She is speaking
to herself but not herself, as in prayer,

the listener is some version of herself,
           and the names are pronounced carefully,
self-consciously; Chopin, Mozart,

Scarlatti, … these gestures of voice and hands
          suspended over the keyboard
that move like the lathe in its turning

toward music, the wind dragging the hoist chain, the ring
           of iron on iron in the holding rack.
His daughter speaks to him one night,

but not to him, rather someone created between them,
           a listener, there and not there,
a master of lathes, a student of music.

Copyright Credit: B. H. Fairchild, “The Machinist, Teaching His Daughter to Play the Piano” from The Art of the Lathe. Copyright © 1998 by B. H. Fairchild. Used with the permission of Alice James Books.