Sonny Rollins's Saxophone, and: In the Corn
Angelyn Hays · Appalachian heritage · 1993
Two PoemsAngelyn Hays Sonny Rollins's Saxophone He grips you tight, leans against the night mouthing metal lips. His roaming fingers run down arched bronze hips while gold melts to blue. Your pads push against bitter breath cascading anger into a smoking gun. Thru you, he purrs and shouts. He twists notes, pouring liquid bebop to sip. The crowd senses a rage I understand. I make a magic link, pull a sheath down my back, and take the guise of sax. In the Corn When I saw the sullen snake glide between my rows, a weird shape reared in fields of half-remembered dream, Church elders chimed, "Confront the beast, chop him in two before he rises." But too late, he twisted his head from the soil, forked tongue screening air, his yellow eye traced in black, my face reflected in his iris. This garden snake, my spine, sheds its human skin so slow no one ever sees me slide between tall rows of corn and out a hole in my garden wall. 58 ...