Jazz Man

He never knew why he worse the thick frames when he played. There were flimsy pamphlets of sheet music that he followed for a time but now he only pretended to skim the lines wit a twitch of his head before squeezing his face into the crescendo of sound that floats from his instrument. Those damn frames slipped down onto the bump near halfway down his nose from a baseball accident when he was young, slipped from the inevitable blips of sweat like Morse code with each beat.

And the breathy melody, his melody wafts from his sax in a sultry steam. Maybe he liked to see the audience through those lenses, crisp and sharp, to see the toothy grins and lip-sticked ladies, the gentleman’s hats being removed one by one as they settled into his music, placing them on pant suited knees or soft denim. A smile in the back, widened eyes and furrowed brows to the left, one woman with a rivulet down her cheek and wet eyelashes. Yeah, man, you dig it? These glasses are essential.

Dew

The light was tangled in his hair, twisted through it in pieces, braiding itself among the tendrils in glowing knots. I love it when he tosses his head to the music, sending light flying from his hair like water droplets, holding my palm outward as if I could catch those bits of light on my fingertips and rub them a crossed my lips that I have just moistened with my tongue

*

And tonight she is alone with the rain. Coming in random dots, ellipses on paper skin while she pedals through an atmosphere heavy in sultry dampness, running its fingertips over her bare neck and exposed thighs, now sticky with sweat and humidity. She is a peach just picked in morning dew, just bitten into. Maybe, she thinks, this is why her bumper scalloped the back end of a utility van today. The music too loud, or she was lost in the deafening beat. She only closed her eyes briefly enough to be a blink, two fingers guiding the steering wheel. Maybe that was why she found herself, alone at the bar accompanied only by a glass of sake, burning down her through either because of the alcohol or because it was so cold, she wasn’t sure. She was only sure of what was in front of her, her journal with dog-eared corners, a set of chopsticks, splintered down the middle and a glass half full of sake, stained by a half moon of red lip gloss. She rubs her thumb a crossed the print because she likes to muss things up, muss, not to be confused with mess. Drips of condensation from the tease of summer roll down the bowl of the glass, over the smeared lip gloss, dripping slow and remorseful like the contemplations on her brain. She runs her fingertips over the wet glass, picking up those droplets and traces her bottom lip.

White Light

-Photo by me

There are afternoons, now, like these ones, where the sky is heavy with its own vast weight, and the air is someone’s breath caught between your shoulder blades nuzzling at the base of your spine, a breath that has just finished a glass of ice water. These days with that tremor of breath and heavy sky, I miss my grandmother’s grilled cheese and goulash.

Now I have a room or two to myself, a wall mainly to my left full of windows letting the outside in. Blinds shut out the world. I hate them, want to rip them down with that sky just hanging there, tear it all down like an old poster or wallpaper come undone, in sheets, strips, letting the white light in.

Pillows gathered in haphazard little molehills around my on the floor; a book open, turned over to save a space, laying like a naked woman on lovers sheets pen quivering over blank, lined paper. This has become my day of rest. I keep the lights off, the natural flush of the sky restoring my sight, fighting off electricity and all other things that come with a flick of a switch or wall socket. That flush will hush into a blue-violet twilight. But I will hardly notice until the corners of my eyes ache from straining to see the white paper beneath black ink.