Sunday Candy by Mirielle Clifford

After Donnie Trumpet & the Social Experiment

I listen twice, three times, four –
the first to hear
the second time, to conjure you
hearing the song for the first time
watching me dance along
over holiday party hardwood floors
my body like it’s holy.

To pass my test
you need to like the song, too.
You’re singing too, but
the third, the fourth, the next times
I listen to situate the theme
in its different variations:

early morning crossing of Atlantic Avenue,
pre-coffee;
rush hour crowd with a woman wrapped
in a blanket, saying, “nasty, nasty, nasty;”
my late night pilgrimage to a train
that may never arrive.

I’ve been waiting for you
for the whole week,
and like a tic there are chords
I wait for in my repeat songs,
the ones that keep me company,
sundried harmonies rewarded
by an open car window

because others are listening
to the same interlude
and the melody it builds.
I’ve been praying for you
and I go crazy for a chord,
for extended chords,

for preacher chords as punctuation
to the homily, for the tonic
diminished
you’re my Sunday candy
and for the minor thirds
above the root.

Come on in this house, ‘cause it’s gonna rain.

# # #
Mirielle Clifford is originally from Texas, but she now lives and writes in Crown Heights. She is a co-founder of the poetry collective Sweet Action and has been poet-in-residence at Gemini Hill. She is working on a chapbook, entitled “Praise, Autotuned.” https://sweetactionpoetry.com

Photo: Jo Zef Mrkwa