I could've probably started sooner
Had a fiddle at the age of four
A Kraft dinner box taped to a ruler
The strings elastic bands of course
You carved one out of wood and splinters
Christmas, 1995
For little hands and smaller fingers
Even tinier than mine
Said the way it works as I get bigger
Sizes that I fit will grow
Sixteenth, eighth, quarter, half in fractions
Coming closer to a whole
Far too large for yet another
You said there's something I should see
Told me it had been your mother's
That's great grandmother to me
Said she bought it in the twenties
The Sears & Roebuck Catalogue
You later tried to fix the finish
Apparently you did it wrong
Because I took it to a luthier
After you had passed away
He tried to tell me it was ruined
But I still play it every day
The last concert you attended
Was when you started getting sick
I played a song I don't remember
I think that after that I quit
But in the crowd at the recital
My mother told me what you said
Nothing perfect, nothing final, just
"That's the best it's sounded yet"
Same face, a second skin
The world's smallest violin
