Moaning the Blues of Nina Simone


Blues of sea and jellyfish lips, blues of pain, or rock salt stinging the heart’s vivid wound, blues of faith, the gospel choir puffing out its chest and belting out the bones and blood of ecstasy, agony, blues of children, scraped chins, lopsided grins, spreading eager fingers in stone-cold water drizzled with sun. Blues of sex, bodies sticking like thighs on leather seats, pressing and oppressing with naked trust. Blues of work, noontime fever, perspiring diamonds cut from hard-boiled muscle, the tough raw steak of arms. Blues of my own work—the teaching, the repetition, the dog-eat-student-dogs snapping up language like morsels of fat. I sing the blues of life, of Nina, of hair, of fire, of earth sponge between my fingers, of baby teeth and milkweed, of breasts growing, taking shapes, the blues of fucking and/or making love, of tears pouring like equatorial rain, of nature, trees and grandmothers intertwined, of sand and stars and the chugging wind. I sing the blues of Nina—and what she sang—to me.

(c) 2005 by Lisa Richter