We've all made music from
out of tune ukuleles and green penny whistles
from the passenger seat of car
rides backwards to our first kiss.

When I ask if you could sing for me
I don't mean you have to sing
with lips or with a harpsichord--
I only know about harpsichords from
the button on my 12-key electric piano
that taught me about the glory
of caroling to an empty room--
That piano was a trumpet and french horn--
a guitar and a banjo--
Did no one ever teach you that
you can play any instrument like
a first kiss?-- clumsy, exhilarated
and terrified-- play me 
a song about trying to
unbutton the collar of someone
else's shirt on the bassoon--
I don't know how to hold it either
but you can pretend you 
were born with a double reed
in between your teeth--
play me "happy birthday" using
one string of an un tuned ukulele and
I will tell you that that is
the sound that geese make
when they're calling for each other
before it rains.
Call for me however you see fit
and I'll be waiting with
my capo on the third fret
of a acoustic guitar that used
to be my hips-- we can both
pretend we know more than 
the approximation of a g-chord
and we can be untrained street performers
who buy apples with quarters from
newspaper boy caps.
Sing about first kisses and 
untrained fingers on the
neck of a string bass--
and I apologize that I'm already married--
my first kiss was to my husband
on the playground in first grade
after we made a worm grave yard--
but I played my own guitar chords 
before that-- lost my virginity 
to an unplugged Rickenbacker  
wearing an over sized Beatles t-shirt
in the living room.