“For a Long Time” by B. Chelsea Adams

(For a Long Time)finalgoddess1
The Arrival of the Goddess of Consciousness by Darwin Leon.

I wasn’t drawn
to trombone,
sax or drum.

During those heavy days,
my head couldn’t hear
through the sadness.
Even my feet and shoulders
would not be stirred
by harmony or dissonance.

At last
I pushed the heaviness aside
like wind shoves clouds away.

And tonight, I’m owned again
by slide trombone, tenor sax,
snare drum.

I’m clothed in their cool silks,
loose scarves.

Slow licks riff
across my breastbone,
up and down my ribs.
I sway back and forth, hardly able
to stay seated.

The waiter thinks it’s the wine.
The bartender cuts me off.
They don’t know
each measure is being written
into me, deep inside
breast and belly,

that when I leave
I will swing down the pavement,
and in a syncopated rhythm,
sing and scat to the moon.

 

 

B. Chelsea Adams received her MA from Hollins College in Creative Writing and English. A chapbook of her poems, Looking for a Landing, was published by Sow’s Ear Press in 2000. Her stories and poems have been published in numerous journals, including Poet Lore, Potato Eyes, Albany Review, Southwestern Review, California State Poetry Quarterly, Huckleberry Magazine, Union Street Review, Wind, Lucid Stone, Rhino, and the Alms House Press Sampler. Java Poems a chapbook celebrating her addiction to coffee was published in 2007. She retired after teaching at Radford Univerity in Virginia for 23 years.

Read an interview with Chelsea here.