Daisy Bassen
Saxophone practice, Meghalayan Age
How it ends matters the most,
The last notes the ones that count, held,
Let go; however unfair it is, recall
Bias and nostalgia overwhelm like salt,
Equally capable of making something
Salvageable a ruin.
It’s the youngest
Instrument in the high school band,
Industrial, invented after steamships, cotton
Gins, long after gin, poured into glasses
Like sweet water for miners who brought
The words for a woman’s white shoulders
To Pennsylvania seams.
The scale climbs
Up and down and back again. You don’t
Forget where you started, you repeat
The exercise, this time blowing that much
More of your breath through the brass,
The alveoli at the base of your lungs
Drafted into service.
You’re going to
To get it right if you try long enough,
That’s the answer, now and then, now
And later, the future you grasped once
Water became wild air, you and that pilgrim
Who crept or sidled from the sea, a cry
Carried away like the refrain.
Time, time
To go, to get going, hurry up, behind the beat,
The metronome clicking its forkless tongue.
How will the sax sound three degrees warmer?
When New York is Venice, a harbor for arks,
Plague-ships, a canoe’s the way to Carnegie Hall.
*
How it ends matters the most,
The last notes the ones that count,
Let go; however unfair it is, recall
Bias and nostalgia overwhelm like salt,
Equally capable of making something
Salvageable a ruin.
The scale climbs
Up and down and back again.
You’re going to
To get it right if you try,
That’s the answer, now and then, now
And later, the inevitable future you grasped
Once water became wild air,
You and that pilgrim who crept or sidled
From the sea, a cry
Carried away like the refrain.
Time, time
To go, to get going, hurry up,
Behind the beat,
The metronome clicking its forkless tongue.
will the sax sound three degrees warmer?
When New York is Venice, a harbor for arks,
Plague-ships, a canoe’s way to Carnegie Hall.
*
How it ends,
The last notes the ones that
however unfair it is, recall
Bias and nostalgia
like salt,
Equally capable of making
a ruin.
The scale climbs
Up and down and back again.
You’re going to
To get it right,
That’s the answer, now, now
And later, the inevitable future you grasped
Once water became wild air,
that pilgrim sidled
From the sea, a cry
Carried away the refrain.
Time, time
To go, to get going, hurry up,
Behind the beat,
clicking its forkless tongue.
the sax
three degrees warmer
a harbor for arks,
Plague-ships, a canoe torn.
*
it ends,
however unfair it is, recall
nostalgia
like salt,
making
a ruin.
The scale climbs
Up down back again.
You’re going
right,
the answer, now, now
And later, inevitable grasped
became wild air,
that pilgrim
the sea, a cry
Carried away the refrain.
Time, time
go, to get up,
the beat,
its forkless tongue.
the sax
three degrees warmer
a harbor for arks,
Plague-ships,
no
Daisy Bassen is a poet and child psychiatrist who graduated from Princeton University’s Creative Writing Program and completed her medical training at The University of Rochester and Brown. Her work has been published in Salamander, McSweeney’s, Plume, and [PANK], among other journals. She was the winner of the So to Speak 2019 Poetry Contest, the 2019 ILDS White Mice Contest, the 2020 Beullah Rose Poetry Prize, and the 2022 Erskine J Poetry Prize. She lives in Rhode Island with her family.