Ghosts

In my post-pubic, pre-priapic adolescence
I thought I would go downtown to cop dope
to sell and halfway there I decided
not to, kept going though, years later reached
Alaskan Way, where Rosemary camped out
between waitressing gigs, saying she wants
to go to bed for old times sake. How old?
Her long dark red hair, a scarlet color
mixed with black, flows, spreading under
her buttocks, where it takes on a new life
as though her pale skin were scorched, hot
to the thrust and bellying back
a code of frenzy’s unlocking of lust
until it sighs and shimmers into love.
After that, walking up one street to talk
of that old project we once abandoned
and she says she’d like to start up again,
mixing blues with mountain music to make
what? I ask, and she: Why not rock?

In dream she leaves to work the graveyard shift.
I wake where sound climbs waves inside, but no,
I was riding the bus up the street now.
I had come too far to give up my need
of the only music I knew could play
in my head where the dancers writhed
before taking one step and then the next
with more panache than the first pirouhette
into the air swarming with honeyed flesh
pouring through my reed as the drums
shivered staccato with the thump of bass,
piano keys gliding to middle C
from down to up and down again as though
providing Paula timbre she required
to sing All of Me. That was a great song
the way she moved the words between her lips
until the syllables cast a shadow
traveling with her ghost beyond the door
to the moon slithering through splintered clouds.

(11 April 2013)

copyright 2013 by Floyce Alexander