The Night of the Concert
by Andy Mitchell
You should have seen her
the night of the concert.
Any other time
she sort of mumbles (like me)
humming to herself, smiling
you’d seen her
the night of the concert
dancing alone
in front of the stage –
it was like her own
private Woodstock –
for all to see, as if no one could,
you would know, or at least have
seen, the true Merry (that’s how
she spells her name)
filled to the brim
with a blues man’s strumming
as though she were a Fender
Strat and he
was Hendrix himself
restringing her backwards,
playing her upside down –
setting her on fire!
For a tongue of flame was she
the night of the concert.
I wish you could have seen it:
the blues man laying down
his licks; the crowd sitting
politely in the park;
and Merry,
in between them,
braided and tie-dyed
in her own world, dancing
the way a deaf woman might
speak in tongues, there in
the aisles of her sanctuary, getting
her fix.
