A Poem by Marianne Szlyk

After the Summer of Young Men in a Hurry

The young men in a hurry played
all that summer in Manhattan,
the once black and white city
ripened beyond lavender into red.

The piano sounded
like storm clouds on the horizon
in a neighborhood
with only fans and open windows.

The high-hat shivered
like the taste of ice chips
about to melt.
The saxophone slipped

into the tightly-packed room
and across rough brick walls
like the last breeze
before September.

Listening to them, you wonder
how they would have sounded
in winter when clouds mean warmth
and storms spawn the steady fall of snow.

Marianne Szlyk is an associate professor of English at Montgomery College and serves as an associate poetry editor at Potomac Review. Her poems have appeared online and in print, most recently in Jellyfish Whispers, churches children and daddies, Poetry Pacific, and Kind of a Hurricane Press' anthology Tic Toc.  She keeps a poetry blog at http://thesongis.blogspot.com/ and hopes that you will consider submitting a poem or two to her "contest": http://thesongis.blogspot.com/2014/06/lively-up-blog.html