Love Stings Drone and Lonely by Bill Gillard

it wasn’t the drunk and desperate
crowd whose ears will ring with dull and gloried
memory of this blues jam near closing
it wasn’t the VFW hall decked for
Valentino’s no it was
her gray eyes two eyes
those gray eyes like she
wasn’t fully made like
a dream a minute after
waking two gray bells
that sustained forever
that’s all I saw beyond

my sax’s bell, those two eyes
and I didn’t see her move in close
until her hand slicked up the cuff
of my jeans fingered raw skin
sparks blasting out through
the stops in the horn like
she was playing me
the three of us screaming
into the night
raising everything we could
the roof beam beer lights
carnival sounds dancing crowd

the throaty growl of a 12 bar blues
tenor sax in heat the roiling majesty
of any tight bar band on any tight
Saturday night volume blasting away
doubt in waves of pure sound
when you’re riding on the root
the train is in the station her bags are packed
then you rise to the fourth
that same train rolling down the tracks
then you climb to the fifth
you know she ain’t never coming back
so when the fifth dropped back down to the root

our solo ended and she slipped away
like sound waves in the night
her gray eyes turned to
mist in the rattle and hum
the bright stage lights
a dream a minute after waking
a train’s distant rumble, long gone
I left my sax in the stand and ran to the parking lot
watched every car that left until I stood
alone in the early morning ice gravel
a night bird’s good night solo stings
drone and lonely in my ringing ears

###

Bill Gillard is an award-winning teacher of creative writing and literature at the University of Wisconsin – Fox Valley. His writing has appeared in Serving House, The Literary Review, The Writer’s Chronicle, Dark Sky Magazine, and many others. His most recent chapbook is Ode to Sandra Hook (Finishing Line Press). He earned an MFA from Fairleigh Dickinson University and is a recovering youth hockey coach.

Photo:  Aurelien DP

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