Electric Guitar
for Patti Boyd
Hollow body, solid body, Archtop, Strat, or Flying V,
my shape’s a pitted avocado; a frying egg, yolk broken;
or nearly any Braque; my dark sounds utter hyperbole,
as in Eric’s bottleneck falsetto to his Layla—formerly
George’s something all too much—her gold ringlets
bloating Slowhand’s bell-bottom jeans with Blues.
Plenty other muses teased voltage from my pickups,
but the duende she awoke could play, until who knew
whether I fed back through her or she through me?
From Departures from Rilke (Arrowsmith Press, 2023) by Steven Cramer. Copyright © 2023 by Steven Cramer. Used with the permission of the author and publisher.
Steven Cramer
Steven Cramer is the author of seven poetry collections, most recently Departures from Rilke (Arrowsmith Press, 2023). His previous book, Listen (MadHat Press, 2020), was named a “must-read” by the Massachusetts Center for the Book. His other previous books include Clangings (Sarabande Books, 2012) and Goodbye to the Orchard (Sarabande, 2004), winner of the Sheila Motton Prize from the New England Poetry Club and a 2005 Massachusetts Honor Book.