Saxophonist & the Four Elements

The syrup smooth of pinched lip, spit down golden tubes, it was there at the wine bar that we went to watch your roommate play along with the semi-famous, local bassist who likes to demean whomever he’s in duo with, he with a cabernet kind of ego, that juts just a bit when lubed.

But, Roy, your housemate and landlord all at once, a head of Fred Flintstone hair like a wig, the sweat pouring from beneath, into the collar of batik-wax Hawaiian shirt, his face red and neck eggplant as he blew out his best tunes, played despite that nagging pain in his throat, a flying Dutchman, wooden shoes left in the closet, with visions of tulips, the red, yellow and rare ever there beneath the porcelain blue, folded china of women he’d known in the old country.

Tests are needed when a sore throat persists over a year and you’re the one that told him, over some pork and breakfast-hash that he’d better schedule an appointment. You’d noticed the way his face was taking on another hue after his daily return from used hops, dump runs for the local brewery, another man dry and daily AA trying in swirls of alcohol, a painter away from the tubes and now sticky pads making E flat, D sharp, a returned dark dream.

Cancer—your astrological sign, he an empath and you an opportunist, though still you bridge some chasm’s others who in recovery-guys only drink to cover in open drownings. Cancer, a sideways sixty-nine had taken up a fish-hooked tear right where he needed the air to blow, to saxophone out fire-burned refrains that carry heavy, crossed, wooden pains to sexy sway.

Photo Credit: Nick Reynolds/unsplash