A Song Of Scars And Melody Poem by A.Z. McCoy

A girl wished on tiptoe
Glimpses of saccharine delight
Splayed across her horizon, sunsetting and silhouetted,
Dancing candy bars with gloved arms of straw-pipe
'The rollercoaster makes your heart plummet,
Drown in a belly-aching roar of glee
Lifted swings unfurl a new world in circle
Giddy bliss, where only motion's gale can free
Whisked, strapped in your chair to swerve and soar'
Or so the horizon's glossy advertisement seemed to read.

With a heart wishing to plummet,
She joined the school choir for just such a trip
Practice every Tuesday and Thursday
Each song carrying her closer
Young voices braided
In harmony, where hers could freely hide

But did something of a magic fuse
Light its firework bloom inside
Along the heart's rhythms
Behind future scars?

In the school hall among friends
She wondered, laughing
If the park was made of chocolate
Like in a movie of childhood fantasy
This dreams will do
Keep a girl wrapped in singsong melody.

Her alto lips pursed in smile
Days crossed on a calendar
One by one, months pass and fall
Ripped pages flutter
'February' wafts from hand,
Lands face-up in the trash
Its glossy photo
Of another girl's gloved hands
Forming a heart over the sunset.
So simple and sweet
The days closing in wait.

A trampoline can make the heart plummet,
Awash, unraveling trajectories inside
This mystery of rise and fall
Joyous dance, her heart kissing depths of springtime dew
Stretching, tethered to each bounce
To rhythms within and without, two girls jump
up and down giggling among skies azure
And soft-shaped clouds.

It's in these rhythms the heart feels free,
Soars and glistens, laughs with the fall
And when heartache loves to plunder dreams,
With an ankle's snap, a falling curtain
Chocolate melted and disappearing
Behind a stolid gray-streaked sky
The surgeon's knife none too sweet
Once flesh Where now only cool, lifeless metal

Left with the scar she could not bear
Her ankle never free in spring and summer
Only signs to hide
The trip long gone, the song of missing dream
Where a lifted chair lost in wind should have been
Memory instead, visits to an operating table.

And does she know
The skin stitches songs and rhythms inside
To heal where it had once been left exposed?
A delicate compass along the bone
For his trembling hand to graze along
And wonder at how hearts rise and fall
On each note the choir girl climbs
Star-crossed with soft, lilting nightbirds
From her lips, dreams set in flight.

The tungsten-lit street-corner
Otherworldy, this place, the plummet of his heart
A skip and melody of dark velvet
Strung stars burn over each verse
It's in these rhythms the night is hers.