My Aunt Gives Me a Clarinet Lesson

"Play," my aunt said, "pianissimo."
I blew out toots and squeaks, filled the kitchen
With caterwauls, monkeys, pigs,
There was a menagerie, there were jungles.
"Why not the cello," she said, "why not drums."
"Zookeeper," my uncle said, "game warden."

I blew out ostriches, catbirds, snow geese.
"Silly boy," she said, creasing
The pages of the lesson book
"Take the gum out of your mouth,
Don't blow so hard."

There were frogs at my feet,
Boat-tailed grackles perched on the towel rack.

I could hear my cousins playing Ping-Pong in the cellar,
There was the tick tick of the oven baking bread,
And wasn't that Freddy Petrie outside
Under the maple, swinging easily on a rope
And making the branch creak?

How many metronomes there were!
"Begin again," my aunt said, "restrain,"
And snapped her fingers next to my ear.
Two mules, I counted. Three cows.

Where was Benny Goodman? Dixieland?
Which house were all the saints marching in?
Farewell, Carnegie Hall, I thought. Good-bye,
Pierson Elementary School Band. So long,
Janice Reutlinger who played the tuba.

There was a yak lowing in the doorway.
"Domesticate," my aunt said, "refine."
Freddy Petrie was riding a wild donkey
Along the blackberry bushes, waving and smiling.
The maple was becoming dangerous and colorful.
Hippopotami had come.
Soon there'd be phalaropes, merinos.

"Sonority!" my aunt cried out. "Sonority!"
And ducks. There were lots of ducks.