Blue. By Cheryl Snell

 

Saxophone mutes the fog in his lungs, mouthpiece clamped to a kiss.

Brass throats on a crying jag throb behind him. His breath slides down a pitch, pinches it like a bleeder. 

The woman at the front table crosses 

her legs to show the rips in her stockings       

twitching like a cat’s tail. She loved     

somebody once, and knows what it means 

to be a smashed thing,  her best parts held  

to the spinning light  and appraised. 

The man squeezes his eyes and smokes  

blue notes, burring and buzzing his lip. 

All night, his train will run beside her bus.

Each one will stare into the shared dark, 

willing the next stop to look like home.

Cheryl Snell is a poet. Novelist. Pianist..An aficionado of old music and new art. Fluent in subtext.