It is the look of terror on his face—
the glossy flank of an open grand piano
untouched & muscled with light
behind them—that makes me turn
away, the saxophonist leaning
into the curve of breath, the arc
glinting from his lips, almost
unwieldy, thick-limbed, the precision
of a volt striking the ground. He is cruel,
I think, his lips gripping the brass
mouth & wood tongue, because
he knows he can’t be touched
as the fighter who doubles
inside the ring, winged fits
of blood & electricity humming
like a halo around the near-corpse
of the man he’s whipped, fists
demarcating notes into the haze
between them, the guitarist’s mouth
& eyes swollen with knowledge
he is ill-equipped, his left hand
a culled constellation, flaccid above
the strings as if to form the chord
of a blistering universe, the first
cut into darkness, deliberate chaos
of the child who pretends to play
lifting the wooden body to his chest,
who knows what stirs in his cells
has no name, the crook & jag, blue
smoke, a bud opening in his abdomen
swelled to the size of hope as we become
the shape of whatever we hold
in our hands when asked to lift up
what we cannot bear to touch.