Song

My mother was a song
in an empty hall.

When I met her
she ended twenty one years of silence
and filled me with her notes

Even with open ears
I barely heard
every e-flat apology
every d-scale dream
every Korean crescendo 
about our lifetime 
of broken chorus

and now I’m haunted
by the screech of strings
that no one listens to.

Some days
I still see her face
in instruments
that no one plays

and I recognize the look 
on a piano 
when someone 
bumps the keys

and all the sounds 
reach out at once

like the music is 
trapped inside it.