from Jazz Fingerings #32
There is no such thing as being comfortable. Birds together cross the sky
unmusically but romantically in formation. Lacking information maybe,
like justice chased and chaste. One observes the shows that relieve us of
responsibility. Would Phil Harper please pick up a white paging phone.
Unless relaxing shapes the shaved head of a glistening listener perched
on an orange sofa-styled chair. Music rustles like breath wind in the trees.
I have sinned, be sure of that. Now try to remake a life to match
what I seashore toward, liquid melodic hops from pool to press corps
if it’s gossip you poke fun at while trimming burnished trees as if
brass were human and triple-tonguing were definitive as camera obscura
attempts to connect dots not to be confused with functional punctuation.
Keep ferreting out relief as the mute cone tempers faith before piano
milking the stars out of clenched chords. Why not infatuate yourself
with closed shop murmur timed to meet drum taps shedding
October from the frontal cortex. These passages are not beatitudes, believe
me. They’re evidence of my father’s death replayed, repaved, unsaid
by people in attendance, the slender box shipped home from Australia
closed of necessity. When tones drift off, they sound memorized un-played.
I kindle safe passage from where I’ve been and where I might go,
brass-handed and brave maybe with pulse brushing your back
as we advance side-by-side with broken hearts aligned in mending.
Sheila E. Murphy. Appeared in Fornightly Review, Poetry, Hanging Loose, and others. Forthcoming book: Escritoire (Lavender Ink), October Sequence 52-122 (Chax Press), and an as-yet untitled collection from Unlikely Books. Most recent book: Permission to Relax (BlazeVOX Books, 2023).
