Annalee Fairley
Relief in Music
And this here this is a moment. Faces replicate
the glowing teeth of a piano combating weary walls with lines of light.
Transported yet here. Right here and not. The swirl and sway of melodic sound
suspended above Brooklyn rooftop.
And you, my sister,
with a face dimpled in the twinkle of tiny stringed bulbs disguising dark.
A face that knows the waltz of words knows that noise is just melody building its home
knows that light just needs something to land on.
And I ask if she heard the harmony here.
Her voice buried itself behind clutched throat, and I knew the place it went
because I was there too along with the audience around me. A circle of warmth
holding their breath in music breaks
And before we knew it. It was over and the weight was still
there but for a moment a simple song stirred vitality into the vision
of deadened expressions
and we forgot.
Bio
Originally from Mississippi, Annalee is a queer poet that now lives in the Inland Northwest. Her poetry has been most recently published in The Black Fork Review, Hellbender Mag, Chapter House Journal, and the Good Life Review. During her writing career, she has been awarded the Gager Fellowship and the Betty Killebrew Literary Award for her work in poetry and fiction. She is currently pursuing an MFA at Eastern Washington University.