The Ballad of the Emphysemic Flute Player

the note is a fabulous thing
it’s noble, it’s round and it rings
If I was coltrane I would play my favorite things
but for want of a note, a note, just one note.

the perfect note, the one that makes you come
inside your left ventricle before the aortal orgasm
leaves you breathless yet longing and satisfied
it’s only a note like a shaft in your abdomen
and it smells like semen in harmony,
a baldheaded penetration
I think a trumpet says it best

but I am condemned to the flute
it’s merely a spiral of air
contained in a tube
you must imagine the sound
it’s not really there

it’s ephemeral as wind
wind which is only known
by how it turns a leaf