Quartet for Nina and Sam

Denise Alden

Erasure Poems from Motel Chronicles by Sam Shepard, 9/28/80

I. “Dahhling.” Ice cool Scotch, blond wig: throw it on the floor, Egyptian queen. Skin shining blue neck, elbows, knees, feet. Deadly landslide piano, voice snaking through eyes and hands. A candle at night, her voice coming through concrete.

II. Nina Simone was cool, eyelids painted blue. Brecht always a deadly shot. She killed me, froze me outside paradise.

III. Nina whole underneath her eyelashes, the mirror resting on the floor. Her song vengeance, shot in those days with ghostly chords working over a candle, singing.

IV. Always painted blue, then red, she used to finish with “Jenny the Pirate,” direct deadly shot. Outside, her voice right through to home.