Narrated by Charles Leggett
Illustration by Sue Babcock
Here is sweet and piercing regret. Uncluttered
and unfettered Eros commended through a
reddened gauze of art. An embodiment of
what one has longed for,
failed in, given up on. A man is dancing
in his wheelchair! Gleaming of shoes beneath a
saxophone. The woodsmoke of bourbon held too
long before swallowed.
Bassist’s cruel sideburns that frame his callous
grimace. Shoulders quivering in an off-red
dress: and down her backside, an undulating
softness invoking
choices poor as those that can call out Death, Void,
clenched Illusion, standards of vain perfection.
Off-red not of blood or tomato, rose: this
palette was mixed by
humankind, cool, letting what moves beneath it
fan the flames. She is what this music does, yet
sways with devastating humility that
not only serves to
fit its grace upon her persona but to
fix one’s gaze with all the more pleonexic
ardor on the billowing bareness of that
alien ombre.
BIO: Charles Leggett is a professional actor based in Seattle, WA. Recent publications include SCARLET LEAF REVIEW (Toronto, Canada), FRIGG MAGAZINE, GRAZE, LATCHKEY TALES, FORM QUARTERLY, FIREWORDS (United Kingdom), SOUTHWORD JOURNAL (Munster Literature Centre, Cork City, Ireland), and PUNCHNEL’S. Others include THE LYRIC and MEASURE: A REVIEW OF FORMAL POETRY; his long poem “Premature Tombeau for John Ashbery” was an e-chapbook in the Barnwood Press “Great Find” series.