I Was the Jukebox

“These poems are fresh, crisp, and muscular. They are decisive and fearless. Every object, icon, or historical moment has a soul with a voice. In these poems these soulful ones elbow their way to the surface of the page, smartly into the contemporary now.”—Joy Harjo, prize citation

from “The Piano Speaks”
     For an hour I forgot my fat self,
     my neurotic innards, my addiction to alignment.
     For an hour I forgot my fear of rain.
     For an hour I was a salamander
     shimmying through the kelp in search of shore,
     and under his fingers the notes slid loose
     from my belly in a long jellyrope of eggs
     that took root in the mud.