Jonas Bengtsson

She is singing it. It is February 15th. We are after hours at Humble Pie. This is the Annual Love Hangover and she is singing it with a belly full of baby and that drunk coot of a husband swaying nearby. Talk about sick with love. But she’s not talking. She’s singing.  Scott is kneeling in front of the stage. I have gone slack in the chair behind him, all moon and daze. We are the you she is singing it to. La la la. And the Grant brothers tell a joke about physics.

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I once loved Scott. La la la. He once sat on my piano bench with his hands outstretched. Ta da, ta da. Palms up, he said, “On this hand is a really cool woman. On this other hand is God.” And so I knew where I was while the Grant brothers told a joke about physics.

Before Scott, I loved Lee. Before Lee, I loved Jeff. Jeff Grant sat beside me in Theory of Calculus. His hands, God, his hands were pale and slender distractions. Easy on the neck of a guitar. Just his pinky finger at the corner of my right eye turned my cal notes sticky sweet, swampy marsh: I’ve got a delta for your epsilon, Jeff. Oh God, Jeff, be sure to bring that Gibson Archtop.

And the Grant brothers told this joke about physics: one day textbooks will print, near their center, a modest equation; its footnote will read, “As late as the twenty-first century, this formula was known as God.”

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She is singing it. Over and on and in every key known to God, she is singing it. Those keys are like water through my fingers. I said, those keys sound like rain when I’m going under. I’ll play you a puzzle and you play the fool. There ain’t no key to me. I said no good key for me. There ain’t no key for me, except you la.