On Listening to Sade

by Rebecca M. Ross


When she sings she is

three in the morning
smudged mascara,
the haze of exhausted lovemaking
as night wears off,
unintended consequences of
loneliness, desperation, passion

She is Art Deco angles–
gleaming beams
of metallic permanence
in the moonlit city,
empty streets dotted with pools
of buttery light,
diluted traffic
yolk-yellow cabs catching speeds unknown--

She is sound breaking
into hollow echoes of
a secret bassline
of footsteps on concrete,
the seductive warmth
of breath in saxophone
under the cool vastness of
an expansive night sky,
the familiar click of key in lock,
the sigh of a door swinging heavily on its hinges,
the flip of a hall light switch,
the subtle and strange isolation embracing an empty apartment.

She is anxiety and anticipation shimmering
on the raised eyebrows of expectation--
still in view yet further and further away as you chase her voice
through bars and over chords,
hopping over familiar choruses to reach her,
hoping for a rest in the music so you can finally say

Brava.


* * * * *

Rebecca M. Ross is originally from Brooklyn but currently lives, hikes, and teaches in New York’s Hudson Valley. She has poetry forthcoming or published in The Voices Project, Live Nude Poems, The Metaworker, Last Leaves, Uppagus, Streetcake Magazine, Whimsical Poet, The Westchester Review, and others. Rebecca’s terrible love for dad jokes and clever puns is the cause of much grinning and groaning for those within earshot–and she’s not sorry.