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Thunder Sandwich #23 |
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David Lunde |
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Streets of Laredo Thinking Streets of Laredo, thinking this day I have walked them, the same streets, the same ones I used to whistle as a kid: I'd pout my lips as if for kissing and press tongue-tip against incisors while its undulating length shaped the column of air. One of my favorite shapes was Bach's Little Fugue in G Minor. My lips and tongue would state the theme with one voice, then I'd pinch my cheeks just so to make two voices at once. It was a happy thing, to whistle, even when the song was sad like my other favorite, The Streets of Laredo, where the young cowboy shot down in his prime, was dressed every time in white linen and his boots carefully shined for the rest of his death. Thinking I never knew the cowboy then but it was a pretty song. Thinking now there's another bang the drum slowly, thinking play the fife lowly, but the lips, the tongue, are stiff, the inspirations of the breath no longer move the heart to music. Thinking, this death leaves me voiceless as the cowboy, but I am less lucky, still walking these streets with scuffed boots, still thinking. |