by Garrett Ray Riggs
Play Misty for Me
for Erroll Garner
I know what I know from the masters
that there is no beginning no ending
only a perfect round table that fractals
outward dispersing the notes of the perfect
E-flat major in the order of all the moons.
I like to play the piano every morning before breakfast
and every morning is a mourning for raising the dead
the piano speaking in full voicings of the River Styx
the keys opening to the place where tenth graders
leave the classroom in hushed voices and shuffling feet
after Romeo and Juliet have died.
These days my cat, Henry, croaks: “Play Misty for me”
because he loves an old Clint Eastwood movie
and he is a jazz lover who knows all the great musicians
come alive wherever all the beauty meets
each one a valentine to the world
a new pandora sending us gifts
a box of hummingbirds in the mountains
unleashed like pranks of the dead:
fireworks, the snoring of a loved one who says–
even in their sleep–I am here.
Stephanie K. Merrill is a retired high school English teacher now living the writer’s life which involves reading, walking, ferns and mosses, cats, tea, piano playing, and a little writing. She lives under the dark night sky in the arroyos on the outskirts of Austin, Texas. Her poems are published in The Rise Up Review, Feral: A Journal of Poetry and Art (multiple issues), UCity Review, Moist Poetry Journal, Amethyst Review, ZinDaily, and elsewhere. Stephanie K. Merrill is a 2018 Pushcart Prize nominee.
Garrett Ray Riggs is an artist and writer who works in acrylic and ink. Texture and vibrant color are primary features in his portraits and abstract paintings. This is his second appearance in Feral and his work has also been featured in Another Chicago Magazine, Quail Bell Magazine, and Mary: A Journal of New Writing among others. Find him on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/garrettrayriggs/.