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Obbligato

By Bruce Smith b. 1946 Bruce Smith

Late August was a pressure drop,

rain, a sob in the body,

a handful of air

with a dream in it,

summer was desperate

to paradise itself with blackberry

drupelets and swarms, everything

polychromed, glazed, sprinkler caps

gushing, the stars like sweat

on a boxer's skin. A voice

from the day says

Tax cuts

for the rich or scratch

what itches or it's a sax

from Bitches Brew,

and I'm a fool

for these horns

and hues, this maudlin

light. It's a currency of feeling

in unremembered March.

There's a war on and snow in the

city

where we've made our desire stop

and start. In the dying school of Bruce

I'm the student who still believes

in the bad taste of the beautiful

and the sadness of songs

made in the ratio

of bruise for bruise.

Source: Poetry (April 2004).

Biography

Originally from Philadelphia, Bruce Smith is the author of several books of poems, including The Other Lover (2000), a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Influenced by Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, Smith’s poetry moves like jazz, incorporating images and narratives into a startling, musically unified whole. In a 2007 interview, Smith explained his poetry’s aspiration to song: “When the language . . .

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