Drummer Boy

Poem

I knew a boy once,
tall as a bell tower
blew past six feet
like an acquaintance
in the super market
he didn’t feel much
like talking to.

Played drums,
of all things.
Like to make a racket
with his hands, see?
He tapped and
hit and slapped
anything hard,
anything hollow,
coaxing the song
out of its soul.
You catch my drift?

In his shower
of eighth notes,
his syncopated
hiccuped staccato,
the rubato he pulled
and stretched like taffy,
hand to God,
inside those rests,
little explosions of
silence between thumps
is where I learned to dance.

more by NOELLE CURRIE

photograph by Michael Mongin

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