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