at nineteen
I was smitten with a girl
who loved gin and tonic
she was a preacher’s daughter
in South Carolina
I discovered that
all of what people say
about preacher’s daughters
is blissfully true
I introduced her to
the bubbly summer fizz
and she introduced me to…
well, let’s just say…
I learned to mix
a mean
gin and tonic
as she lay beside me,
naked and asleep
on that motel bed,
I took tequila shots
and reveled in the majesty of
Austin City Limits
the television and I,
both sloppy drunk
with the sounds
of John Hammond
slurring curses through
a mouth harp,
the tube on his finger
causing that steel guitar
to scream bloody murder
and holler for its momma
I sat stupefied
on the edge
of a cheap mattress,
covered in awe
and still coated
with her
Delta Blues cut
jagged holes
into my memory,
with its muddy banks
flesh, sights, screams,
wailing demons
and wobbling fingers
only a cheap television screen
and a cigarette ash,
backlighting
the carnal event
she, now quiet on the bed
Hammond on the screen,
now brutally howling
as if in some type of
infernal pain
a blistering welt
from the bite of a hell hound,
now sulking somewhere
in the mosquito-infested
darkness
“Oh!!! Say,
my momma don’t allow me…
to stay out
aaaaall night long!”
I, now
consumed completely
by cactus juices
and cascades
of flaming guitar notes,
flying out of the
Devil’s fingertips
I straighten my back
and draw in closer
to breathe in her hair
then, toward the television screen
and I fall sleepily beneath
the heavy spell
of it all
now,
standing in a friend’s kitchen,
I think back
on all of it
I spy a bottle of gin
with a little less than
a shot left in it
I open the fridge
lo and behold,
a fresh bottle of
tonic water
I mix the two
and raise
a toast
to the various potions
of summer’s forgetfulness…
to the southern gene pool,
with its extraordinary ability
to produce the most
exquisite specimens
of the female form…
to the Delta blues
its vinyl static,
scratched into my soul…
to John Hammond,
masterful and
merciless…
to the claw marks
on my back…
to the fear
of Jesus
Copyright 2020
Magus
(Kevin Trent Boswell)
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Kevin Trent Boswell 