By Stephen Kampa
It’s not the saxophonist’s fluent phrases
Cascading in a silver chain
Articulate as rain
Unpetaling a bed of roses
That best conveys the tenor of our longing,
But rather those thin, watery notes
He breathlessly emotes
As he runs out of air, still clinging
To the diluted hope death can’t trump feeling
(The way the last wet petal clings
Fast to its bud, and swings
In sputtering gusts, and flutters, falling).
***
Stephen Kampa teaches poetry at Flagler College, as well as working as a musician. His first book of poems, Cracks in the Invisible, won a gold medal in poetry from the Florida Book Awards. His second collection, Bachelor Pad, was published this spring by the Waywiser Press.