Learning to hold a flute all over again

it's like starting over
it is starting over, all over, with the flute
wobbling woefully, my thumb can't find
its place, stressed out and searching like
Goldilocks for the spot, just right, not too
far left, not too far right, not too far up or
down, just right.
it's hard to start over again, the fluent
passages that used to sing from my flute
seem impossibly distant.
they were not fluent enough so
the tall South African sent me back
to kindergarten, and did not
even provide cookies and
milk.