saxophone

My old gray saxophone from Elkhart Indiana

has sermons and marches by John Phillip Sousa,

moaning and preaching from pulpit to sidewalk inside.

The bell is tarnished with the slobber

of a dead dairyman's uncle

who blew speakeasy hits on hot cornfield nights,

running on reefer, and wadded up panties

under the seat of a '29 Model A coupe.

From Shanghai bars,

where brilliantined men threw back shots

from a bottle of cobras steeped in whiskey

before they lurched down the streets of the Bund

from brothel to brothel to bar;

my saxophone remembers it all.

All the years in the attic awaiting parole,

the sounds imprisoned in it's cold metal throat

just requiring a fresh wet tongue

and a firm lip to make its secrets flow,

to whisper or croak, to listen to mine:

About rain gleaming on cobbles

or how that miniskirt hiked up her thighs

when she shifted gears as we sped to her room

where she gobbled and squeezed out

all the fight and the vinegar i'd been hoarding.

And my absence of mind, 

I heard the crunch of linden leaves on the grass,

and carnival sounds, the sweet drip

of the ephemeral spring

where it snuck through the moss.

A diesel train growl, kittens mewling for mothers,

the impatient horn blasts of traffic.

A river chuckling through boulders.

sobbing dark chocolate notes, shop door bells, sirens.

The squeal of bed springs and hinges.

Humpback whale songs, machine guns.

The rippled pink lips of a conch shell

where i'd play a duet with the tides,

and press ear to ear,

listening for radio static from Jupiter

and gypsy violins.

It's back in the case now,

unplayed and unplayable

for the last forty years.

Instead; this is the merry-go-round in my head,

where a calliope plays Miles Davis

and the crows sing manifestos.