The Empress
 

When Bessie Smith is moaning, sadness pumps
the dismal afternoon alive with joy.
Old lanterns burn my eyes and static stumps
of furniture wake honey-combs to buoy
the darkness. Howling, Bessie struts her stuff
through time and space with love until her rough,
untrimmed, fire-eating voice explodes a blue
Egyptian tomb into a bitter star.

This evening in the corner of a bar
I heard her name. I thought of staring through
the porthole of the ferry crossing to
Milwaukee: miles of whitecaps; the rain
beginning to fall around Chicago in its true,
unbroken grace. Such beauty stings with pain.



© Robert Rosenberg