PEARLS

PEARLS

When your lungs release into
valves turn your pressure into sound
and you travel down my curves into air
where my tenor voice says "turn to me."

You blow and blow and blow
...out of reach you go.

Playing in that slow hurtful stretch of longing
playing intensely - inciting frenzy from an emptiness falling
I cannot stand nor can I stop being filled with repeated blows
those pursed lips forever bound by movements of sorrow and desire.

And you blow and blow and blow
...deeper you go.

Stinging from grains musical; hear my wreckage over reed beautiful
taste the sweetness of saxophone bitter
hear melancholy too well played
notes choked in escalating flutters clipped

...as I dive for pearls, out of breath from the start.