Connie Johnson

Connie Johnson is a Los Angeles, CA-based Pushcart Prize nominated writer whose poetry has appeared in Syncopation Literary Journal, Rye Whiskey Review, Impspired, Exit 13, Toasted Cheese Literary Journal, Lothlorien Poetry Journal and Writing in a Woman’s Voice. Her debut poetry collection is entitled Everything is Distant Now (Blue Horse Press); In a Place of Dreams, her album/digital chapbook, can be found at  www.jerryjazzmusician.com       

The Torch Singer

My body could yield if I allowed it.
A grounded arpeggio in a world of other elevated scales:
Etta Jones, Joyce Bryant, Anita O’Day. I was told that

endless music would induce happiness, but only within reason.
I was reminded that a smoky timbre is what most men remember.
Rubato phrasing, I took that as an excuse to abandon

everything else: back seam nylons, shoulder pads and a Victory Roll!
Nobody mistakes me for a novice due to the way I spin aural sugar;
I blow dust and particles of magic. Sadly, the results are always

the same: lithe figures of jazz concoctions and just an excuse
to call you my hepcat. All too soon, my knees are knocking
on the bandstand and there’s a guy backstage who thinks

he knows me better than I know myself. Magic at the mic
and a body poised to deliver the va va voom! version
of a jazz legacy.

Always behind the beat, always a torch held aloft,
nobody in the whole wide world taught me
how to sing this way.