MusicAuthor(s): Karen MitchellSource: Callaloo, Vol. 24, No. 3, The Best of Callaloo: Poetry. A Special 25th Anniversary Issue(Summer, 2001), p. 843Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3300211 .

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from Vol. 16, No. 3 (Summer 1993)

MUSIC

by Karen Mitchell

She wanted to sit on the floor. The chair glittered from bold

carpentry. The lamp stood electrified as the couch sucked in its belly button as the women asked, Did the shoes fit?

Here, she knew what to say as the sugar fell into the cup of green. Here, her voice would sound strangely like a gasp, or a soprano, or a cicada during the fourteenth year serenading for lips colliding, the last embrace before dying on a tree stump.... When the stanza repeated fit fit fit, she would look down to see her dress become wool, a frock belted tight from the music, their questions stacked upon the stand until the Scandinavian bird, plumed like a showgirl emerged from the clock's tongue-

12:00 and the women, wearing pity like a bandolier, served crackers and sowbelly....

Callaloo 24.3 (2001) 843

This content downloaded from 62.122.76.54 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 16:00:35 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions