Recognition Scene

The thick-felted piano hammer,
Freshly repaired, clamped down on the wire.
The listener leaned his head . . . Nothing.

If this were a fiction, you’d expect
The phrases to have been invented,
The whole scene to have never happened.

Scholarship would suggest the scene did,
But that the phrases weren’t plagiarized.
And, if a literary lyric,

Then, however inventively phrased,
Readers could safely expect the scene
Came from the poet’s experience.

So this bit’s fiction, except it lacks
Narrative structure, so far, nothing.
Wait. She recognized the listener.