top of page

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.

© Bicoastal Review 2025. All rights reserved.

bottom of page