The Piano Roll in the Patent (Hedy Lamarr)

Lyrics

[Verse 1]
You were the most beautiful woman
in every room
you walked into
in nineteen forty,
which was a thing
the room
would not stop
telling you about
even when you were trying
to think,
so you stopped trying
to think
in front of the room
and you went home
and thought
in your living room
where the room
was not invited.

[Verse 2]
You sat down
at a player piano
beside a composer
who knew exactly
how the punched paper
made the eighty-eight hammers
fall in order
without a player
at the keyboard,
and you said
*if a paper roll
can sync two pianos
in two cities
it can sync
two radios
on a torpedo and a ship*
and the composer
said *yes,*
and the war
did not yet know
what had just happened
on a Tuesday afternoon
in Beverly Hills.

[Chorus]
You filed the patent.
The Navy filed it
in a drawer
and forgot it
for twenty years.
The frequencies
did not forget.

Every cell phone
in the pocket
of every grandchild
of every man
who told you
to smile for the photograph
hops between channels
the way your piano roll
hopped between channels
on a Tuesday afternoon
in a living room
that had stopped
talking about your face
because you had finally
left the room.

[Outro]
You died
without the credit.
The credit
showed up at the funeral
late and breathless
and unable
to look you in the eye
and you had already
left that room too,
and you were grinning
about the whole thing
on the way out.

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