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Tearin 'Em Up Live He
went to sleep one night and never woke up the
second draft of his latest poem on the night table beside
her blue glass earrings. Music – hot,
hungry vocals, guitar licks, saxophone notes wailing
around his old orange cat who slept oblivious
and faithful on the pillow beside him. He
couldn't sleep without it and she found him in
the middle of Etta James tearin 'em up Live at the Parisian Room where nobody was sleepin. She'd
come in to get her earrings off the table and
bent to kiss him goodbye just as the last notes of
Etta's dynamite third set ended and the music stopped.
She heard the stunned music of
her own voice, "oh my God," as she touched his cheek
in disbelief fighting strange grating notes of
hysteria swirling and rising from her belly up to
her throat. She slumped against the table saw
a blur of orange beside him, the cat still sleeping. He
was a poet who painted houses. He slept with
her between stanzas and odd jobs. She knew music was
his real passion. They'd sit at the kitchen table late
at night. She'd toss her hair and sing along to his favorite
songs, all slinky and jazzed up in
her red thrift store dress, murdering the high notes. Sometimes,
usually during winter, she'd find notes. Rising
in the see-your-breath bedroom, sullen and sleepy she'd
stumble out to the kitchen and find one stuck up on
the fridge, "my dearest Etta or Ella or
Aretha, your music kicks ass," signed "your biggest fan." She knew his dream.
That last poem she found on the table was
a song. She sat for a long time beside the table holding
that scrap of paper, humming, crying, imagining the notes of
a guitar, a piano, a stormy-blue voice, and the expression on his face
as he listened. Now, during the silent chill of sleepless nights
she hears only the sad ruin of this unexpected music and
the endless encores swallow her up. In
her red dress at the kitchen table, the cat asleep on
her lap, the raspy notes of kick ass music, a
vigil for him. Etta tearin 'em up. © Donna Burks June 2006 [ This poem is on the site with the permission of
the author and at the request of participants in the Poetry-sharing circle at the Unitarian Fellowship on August 12, 2007. It appears in Spring Magazine October, 2007. ] |