(no subject)
Watching an Ani DiFranco DVD Upstairs
I think the real spotlight here is on the upright bassist
The one you see on the right side in the corner with a blond ponytail, surprisingly
Unobjectionable, his face bland and charming - his fingers fast
Because the zigzag of eyecontact whirling between them seems to
Feed her; because when I learned to sing harmony they taught the bassline first.
Now being an “alumnus” I am left with less and less to fiddle with
I return to the old upstairs apartment, the one we are trying to sell, because its emptiness is
Air conditioned. June is upon us in all its sidewalk glory and I am left tank-topped
And irritated, putting my hair up and off my neck and indulging, more and more,
In more-naked sleeping and kinds of ice cream - kinds offering varying degrees of
Healthfulness: lactose-free yogurt; sugarless jimmies…
Upstairs where the television is still I am watching last year’s Christmas present:
“Ani DiFranco live at Washington, DC” on DVD - a thin red cover with
Jumbled photographs and a song list that runs down the left side in white, unseraphed
Type face. She wears her hair in dreadlocks and she is a “righteous babe” now -
Ani, fierce and Ani, bold; Ani, all the adjectives that become a woman, these days
Like the way she leans back and lets her knees carry her forward in small steps
As would a cane-less old man, or the bubble curve of her butt: it’s like all these
Outline and define the soul-lady, and her imperfections we forgive and celebrate in turn.
Her nose archs as a quarter-circle and I admit to myself that her eyebrows are yes
More fuzzy and broad than my own, loathed in their sprawling rectangular mess
But boy can she sing, boy, the girl has got pipes - and I think I can separate
Her mastery from her “message” - because I do not wear shirts that say “This is what a
Feminist looks like” and I have fast forwarded the bit where Congressman Dennis
Something-or-other comes out to tell us that we should ride bikes and not bombs.
Because as a Jew I believe in God, that baby she so frequently throws out with the bath
And because as the child of a conservative father floating with the liberal sea of the city
I find safety in melody as something a-political, as I, replacing afternoon’s prose with
Night’s poetry and sinking deeper into happy confusion. Thing is, in all her upright glory,
Her songs are the source of my solace and her words are often my prosaic model and
Upon finding an eyelash I do, somewhere between her and Miss America, wish for peace.
So yes, I decide sprawled on the sofa, yes - you are good. Yes, Ani, I agree, I will sing along
With you so loud and so recklessly that the real estate broker at the door, after knocking and
Shouting Hello for some minutes now just walks in on me, sprawled and singing. And this
“Pamela,” who has come to sell the spaces of the life I have known this far, seems unphased
By this girl in her couch-ruffled pj top and short-shorts, dirty hair and loud vocalizations.
This is not new to her, simply, this is her business; I, on the other hand, startle and stop
Before the last song has ended, leaving Ani DiFranco interrupted behind the screen we will
Bring downstairs soon enough, a few weeks before I leave this not-quite home, and enter
A life so unfamiliar I cannot anticipate, I cannot speculate a bit of it.