The Soundtrack

As graceful as a spider web in a breeze

Her feet traced the dance floor gently

A ridiculously large belly

Balanced on slender legs.

It was News Years Eve 1983

Her pregnant mind full of resolutions

His eyes dimmed by champagne.

Maybe that’s where the music starts

The night before I was born

When they waltzed to Sinatra

Tangoed the Caminito

And fox-trotted to Ella.



I grew up in a world full of smoky voices

As warm as chocolate chip cookies

When it’s worth having a burnt tongue for a taste.

Just take a little Nat King Cole

Stir in old Satchmo, with a kick of Billie.

There’s something pure in their lazy drawls.

Their sounds smell familiar

Like the fireplace in the old house

Or mother's milky skin.

But that’s just in memory

Sometimes I remember the lyrics wrong.



In your youth, you don’t really understand the lyrics, anyway.

Like the time I sang for Mrs. Dumas

My third-grade teacher.

She went to the Calgary Chapel

Full of white smiles and black faces

Rich buttery flavored cries, voices so soulful

It made you want to melt into yourself.

“Sing baby, sing!” She chanted

So I sang the songs that I knew

My white-girl hue probably flat

In contrast to their colorful tones

But I didn’t care.



That same year, my radio broke

Or maybe it just got stuck on a bad station.

Mom and dad stopped dancing,

Mom moved us to the house that had one of those

Electric fireplaces

Didn’t put off smoke, only dry heat

It was a house full of bad music

Like a Neil Diamond Christmas album.

Funny how some of the worst songs stick with you the most.



But baby, you’ll never learn to sing the blues

If you don’t drink every color at least once.

The watery hush of violins and reeds

The rhythmic itch of brass and guitar

The hard, salty kiss of syncopated voices

The deep, throaty moans of graveled cries.

They are rich with colors.



But my canvas wasn’t art

Until the day I fell into red.

I fell into a red pulse of harmony

Enamored by an adagio of scarlet and heat

Kissed by a cadence different than any other beat

And for a moment, I forgot every other color

There was just this, Crimson Bliss.

But I overlooked that warmth can burn

That red means stop, careful, caution.

You can’t survive on one color alone.



The day I curled into black And fell asleep in the ashes

Was the day that I knew

I could taste every rhythm

And it wouldn’t scar me.

I can savor every texture, every hue

And baby, I can finally sing the blues.