Before
I was stage-sweat, nerve-bit,
palms too slick to be skin.
My clarinet, all black and rumble,
she begs me to play her like I'm dying.
She wants to pedestal me in front of my rhythm-throated family.


I remember how we got here.
She howled to me through her black shell,
as if I were a moon full enough to tide her.
I was new to this. She didn’t tell me
I would be plunging into her abyss
of crystal sound.
Daddy told me to take it slow,
but when I blew her first note
when I heard her first e,
sweeter than a priest's whisper
more natural than anything holy.

After*
We stripped that stage raw.
Shredded the floorboards with the treble in her flats
Her g's and c's were sharp and clear as gasps.
We howled in our black suits.
We sounded like we'd been there for 30 years.
Like we belonged in the 30s,
kicking up smiles in the dust of those years.
We were that jazz that makes you sweat.
I was a man up there.
And she gave me this.
A rite of passage that only she can give.
Nothing can feel as good as this.