Face blank as absolution,
from this back row
she stares straight ahead
to the small raised stage
of touring musicians, lost
in the rebel notes they sold
their souls for. Surely, the slight
shadow of sax expands
to fill her one solemn eye,
the blur of bass drum
the other. The charismatic vocalist’s
filled-with-the-Spirit keyboard
oscillates up and down
her stiff spine, while—
inside the long sleeves of her habit—
her fingers, half-hidden
in the fabric’s heavy folds,
tap-tap, tap-tap.
—Marjorie Maddox
