Day Forty-one

Today's words:

Loft

Saxophone

Needle

Skateboard

Midwife

Ring

I once shared a SoHo loft

With a well-known saxophone

Player, who unfortunately had a fondness for the needle.

The place was so big you could skateboard

In it. I saw myself then as midwife

To his art, and expected nothing; certainly not a ring.

And when the telephone would ring

I'd run from wherever in the loft

I happened to be. Part of being a midwife

Was also being a receptionist. The saxophone

Player couldn't be disturbed, unless he was on his skateboard

Or communing with the needle.

Sometimes my friends would needle

Me about this life, but I thought their words didn't ring

True. Besides, I got to skateboard

From one end of the loft

To the other, with wonderful saxophone

Music as accompaniment. Being an artist's midwife

Was worth it, I thought. He needed a midwife

Like he needed the needle.

We both helped him use his saxophone

To express his art, as he sped in a ring

Around the loft

On his skateboard.

One day I was sick of it. I picked up my skateboard.

"I'm tired of being your midwife."

I shouted, "and of sitting around this loft

"While you make love to that needle.

"I'm not asking for a ring,

"Just some attention." He grunted, and picked up his saxophone.

One day there was silence. No saxophone

Played. The skateboard

Was abandoned. I'd had to ring

For a doctor, not a midwife,

When I found him with the needle

In his arm. That's when I left the loft.

So I was a saxophone player's midwife,

While he played with a skateboard and the needle,

And in the end I got nothing; not a ring, and certainly not the loft.