All the years we two little cousins
looked up to her, she was Dede,

her two initials an alliterative
nickname, one you could sing with

the same note on the piano. Which
made sense for our musical cousin,

the second daughter of our beloved
Auntie Lo, our father’s sister,

the piano and organ teacher, who
could play just about any song by ear.

Dede followed in her mother’s
musical footsteps, becoming the girl

percussionist in the high school band
who played the piano-like instruments—

xylophone, marimba, glockenspiel,
also wicked good on tympani, too.

Of course, I longed to follow in her
footsteps when it came time to choose

an instrument, plunging into the world
of mallets plinking out melody,

rolling out luscious chords. My sister
and I still adore our Dee, who dropped

the second initial long ago, who, just
for fun, has embroidered me a tea towel

with a teacup atop books surrounded
by flowers. She so gets me, our Diana Lee,

who, with her sister Pat, are the only two
people living who’ve known me since

I made my debut on the planet.
Who recently sat with so much family

in a concert hall as I sashayed back
into percussion after four decades away,

applauding her younger cousin who
remains inspired by her older one,

still carrying a melody or two or more
in her heart, always our Dede.