Tonight's Poet Corner: Free Music on the Ground Floor

Free Music on the Ground Floor
by Belinda Roddie

He bought four harmonicas, cedar-odor
cases for each, and gave them to his kids
so they could trill a buzz as thick and sweet
as the whiskey poured into their landlord's glass
on a sticky June-uary evening. His wife

guzzled lemon water to stave off the headache
bubbling like carbonation, as the growl of
slotted metal overpowered the wheezing
springs in the apartment's one couch, its
cushioned eyes sagging more and more with tired age.

Some day, he'd pull the banjo out
and accompany his children in a tune
that was carved into a stump by his father when
his last hope for livelihood was saved by
the warbling guttural courage of his kin,

as they provided free music on the ground floor
of the dust town's oldest hotel, with bass and tin
and brass frets on a mandolin, the coffee cold
but the cotton smiles bright, as sweat
made the strings rust faster but the voices
rise higher to the breath of southern zephyrs.