Fragile Earth

By Meredith McCrary

Art by Anna Maria

*This piece was awarded our editors choice for Jazz*

            You were lovely. Especially this morning. It is the first time I’ve caught glance of you but I guess it just seems like common knowledge. Shit. I’ve got to catch my train.

            You were lovely. The brief smell of old coffee lingered just long enough in the air for me to catch sight of you. And how lovely; to drink old coffee. To lift yourself up in the morning just early enough to fold your legs off of the sheets. To lull your heavy head away from the pillow. To wake up with enough sweet sugar cubes spilling from the open wound of your head to go for coffee.

            And how lovely; to have music. That’s what you remind me of. Which seems fitting because how could one not be reminded of music when you’re playing the guitar so goddamn well.

            You were lovely. The sounds of the Q approaching played with the weighted guitar in your hands. And I wonder if the humidity sat on the guitar strings like it had seeped into my copy of the New Yorker. The headline said “New York is full of music”. Or maybe it just said “Fragile Earth”, “The Year Global Warming Made Its Menace a Reality”. Shit maybe you’re not a fan of the New Yorker, okay wait. 

            Nevertheless! You were lovely! The Q was approaching, And you sat tuning your guitar, and how lovely. To listen to the ending of a tired note. To watch you stand for the train. To smell of old coffee. To fold my New Yorker off of the sheets of stickiness that was the weather today. To watch you pack up a brown sugar guitar. To sit, like humidity on a bench, and shift the blue hat across my forehead, sweat playing music on it.

            You were lovely. Especially this morning. It is the first time I’ve caught glance of you but I guess it just seems like common knowledge. And shit. You’re already gone.