Mappa Mundi Echoes
After hearing Joe Giardullo
Underground
in the abandoned
Widow Jane Mine,
a jazzman
in a porkpie hat
ambles on stage
between lime pillars
chiseled like blocks
of bittersweet chocolate.
From thick-wicked
vanilla candles,
flames flicker
along the gully wall
while creamy fresh notes flow
from the bell of his soprano sax.
The room of rock claimed,
the goateed player slowly
closes his eyes and airily
caresses his lips over and
around that lucky mouthpiece.
—Mary Louise Kiernan Hagerdon
This article appears in March 2017.
