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Falsetto
by Amy Gerstler
A guy with a heavenly singing voice like Al Green’s
can make you believe he’s being melted alive, liquified
by pure yearning. The result is a kind of bee-less sung
honey. The singer I’m listening to this hot summer noon--
Dean, or is it Gene--sounds like he’s auditioning to be
female. No, it’s more like he swallowed a woman whole,
without even mussing her lovely hair. Now their duets,
entwined laments, spill from his lips, reveries of what
each has embraced, squandered, fucked, drunk up.
His singing gives off a whiff of what we once called sin.
Then she slipped off her girdle, and we recognized
her as blessing, or maybe her kid sister, bliss. Jonah
in the whale’s belly pleaded sweetly with god,
warbled a high-pitched SOS. Falsetto elected a nest
of tiny silver cobras who twist themselves into treble clefs
to represent it on paper. Those within earshot close
their eyes as the cries of bog men and ice maidens mating
rise from an abandoned amber mine. He who sings perfect
soprano like this, he who wields the orchid sword
cannot be resisted, at least until this record ends.