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Composition in Sunlight Composition in Sunlight Jessica Healy I breathe in deeply and rest my arms on the window sill, slowly exhaling the smoke in wispy tendrils; it disperses on the wind, spiraling off into the distance. From my window I can see the mountains lighten toward the ocean, the dichotomy of light and shadows shifting until they melt back into the dark. Close to me are the tall thin cypruses with a rich golden backlight. Narrow and gaunt, they move softly in the morning breeze like some shimmering jazz singer swaying to the minor chords of a junk piano, with tarnished brass trumpet notes hanging dimly around her lidded eyes, lingering in the hollows of her curls. Dawn clings to the branches, light dripping close through the leaves, and I watch the music, the players, the cigarette smoke undulating in time with the beats of the blind drummer and hips swaying and my heart melting slow, languid to catch it as the cars coast slowly past in the dawn. A gust shakes the trees – a group enters the club with a laugh and a slam of the heavy door, their feet clinking on the tinny basement stairs – and a lonely leaf drifts down like a descending melody swathed in the clarion keen of a clarinet. And now the sun has risen and the drummer rolls his wrists and the cars speed up, people shouting to be heard over them in the parking lot underneath my room. The palm trees bend toward each other and the couples spin past each other on the worn wood floor in front of the stage. The bass plucker and the man with the gravelly voice start to banter lyrics and now the day has fully broken, a smooth tenor soaring above the street outside my window. With a thud, a car door slams shut, signaling a shift to a pounding, plunking beat of bass and drum and dance intertwined; and, bright above it all, the vocals wheel. Noon, now, and you can’t help but nod your head in time, start to tap your foot, sway in your seat, hands shaking, feet stomping, hoots and whistles and only the hottest couples left dancing, the music blistering, throats screaming trumpet wails of appreciation, cymbal shrieks, and then the silence before eve and only the ragged breath of exhaustion as they sink back into the shadowy audience. The street holds its breath as the sun hangs bloody crimson and brass. The singer returns, the strings of the bass bump dolefully along as she ascends to the stage, the piano’s plucks slow, soft, and then the brass begins to whisper. The audience lights another cigarette and in their first exhale she murmurs lyrics, streaks of cloud and dripping light. They order a drink, and the waitress slinks off, her skirt swishing above her knees, and they take another drag on the cigarette, the slow detached high pulling them toward the music; her voice starts to climb the scale, the music shifts to major, and, the cigarette gone, where did this song come from, only hints of the original mournful sighs, a screaming howl of glorious jazz, and then it ends, fades away softly back into night. The mountains sink back into dark, the trees sleep, shaken half-awake gently by the headlights of cars drifting lonely at midnight; only the singer is left, and the cigarette smoke, and the empty wail of a solitary trumpet. back |