If You Play Jolene at 33 rpm

 

Dolly’s vocals lower

to a cowboy croon:

 

I’m begging of you      please

don’t take my man.

 

Slow any song

and sorrow blooms

 

like blood

through a bandage.

 

Slow sorrow

and it darkens like dusk-

 

stained windows.

Outside, moths fire-dance

 

around a porch light,

a black horse breathes

 

in a field, lungs filling

with night.

 

The words curve

into prayer:     please

 

don’t take him

even though you can.

 

Jolene as Jesus

green-eyed with fiery hair,

 

the god

gay men at bedsides begged

 

to spare their loves.

Imagine the quiet

 

when she didn’t answer.

Sound of the stylus lifted,

 

the record still turning.