Once upon a Sunday
with the air dripping wet,
a girl in denim blue
came and sat
below crowns of pines—
far from weak and weary,
far from forgotten,
and started to tap the guitar—
its body, rosette, even bout:
“Only this and nothing more,”
with August waiting by the door.
But no bars to borrow
from those who listened
still in their small oubliette,
each separate, dying to her words,
although vainly but not in vain
still on selling to all those buying
their extra prison’s rods.
Thus there she came and sat down
with her expert silken palms
made to squeeze and fret
her guitar’s pegs and nuts,
glissando with fingers
on a rapid slide
now she dressed
and undid again
with sound and tremor
the guitar’s rendered neck,
to entreat an entrance
rumored to be no more
except for times’ darkness,
cloven with its telltale horns:
Is that how souls grow stronger
where they disappear?
But anyway, that’s how the neck,
the strings, the bridge, the waist,
became roused, forgone, taken,
and her fingers necklaced all,
inlaying them with beats and rimes:
thus and way much more
when the day was old
and the night still young.
A lady with a husky voice
to a mute and hollow Lord,
way too late to doubt
any of those flowing notes.
And I would think and bat
that no one since the Moors
has ever brought one’s lover back
across from the ocean to this shore
as she did it with chords then
and with such an adroit spank,
and so often trained,
where the guitar rounds
its polished end
while her hair laid
in raven black
found its lift
with each of the heels’ new rap.
Was it an angel—someone fallen—
wide-eyed by her smile
and combed, recumbent
on her fingers’, feathers’ blade,
brought down, summoned
to her Bacchic song.
No comments:
Post a Comment