Practice Rooms

Plastic cubicles line the long fluorescent
hallway—clear cells hardened into soundlessness;

each contains a piano‚ metronome‚ one girl.
The isolations partial by design‚

the proctor watches hands obey prescribed
measures‚ a body’s particular sway‚ head

moving in concentration—music immured behind
the pierced lobe‚ sculpted whorl of auricle‚ the temporal bone.