LIPS OF ORPHEUS

Orpheus-
that bony black Jazz player
inhales slowly, his aged, tarred lungs
sip the pre-melodic air,
he fingers the cold brass scythe,
prolonging the moment
for his lips to buzz;
and they will, Emily,
they will.

His eyelids, tight like the hands
of children before school, the
lashes like interwoven fingers,
his face is a near-fulmination
-or perhaps exasperation,
as beads of sweat are faltering
like quarters in his hat,
they curve around his lips with
the salty taste of loss:
the preludes of which volition
has no will to escape.

The pausing trumpet player
-what will bellow from the brass?
the women say a note, soft and subtle,
the men, loud and fierce
like the phosphorus of war;
yet the children envisage
that it will unfold and effloresce
like mauve streaks at sunset;
but what they seem to know
and what we have all lost
is something too simple to recollect:
the lips of Orpheus will buzz again at dawn,
and they will, Emily,
they will.