“My heart is beginning to melt”

I heard this in my head while listening to the local symphony

playing a concert devoted to the Christmas season.

I imagined snow falling on a freezing December night, only to melt in the morning

but my thoughts also acted to help me

melt the ice built up around my soul.

Sitting in that too warm seat of the theater

I saw you, made love to you, admired your smile – all within the scaffold of sound.

The transition from muted strings to classical jazz

acted as a chromatic aberration, distorting the images of loss

with chords arranged in architectonic ways.

The percussionist sweeping the snare

the triangle PING a sharp blue crescent in the night

the strings buzzing like moths around a backdoor porch light

stars pinpoint brass reflections on the keys of the sax

here in the melodies, hear in the melodies

the syncopation of our heartbeats

the slithery snaking bass line bump of us in the middle of the movement

Three Black Kings, but in the wings now just one white man and one brown woman

who knew that the price of admission

for our acts of coition

would have to be paid

before or after the show.

Advertisement