Winehouse Brandy

Amy invades

takes up cocktail hour residence 

Soft as shadows she casts silhouettes

tightly cut into shape by her X-acto knife voice

a dollop of dissipation floats in the refrain

She is the hors d’oeuvre served on a Ritz cracker in the local pub

Defiant, her lyrics undulate

sassy sad angry

Amy’s brave wise cracks

Every word snaps

Because her mouth forms the sound before it emerges

Knifes in

Warbles out

Some verses click, they are the essence of castanets spoken

How does she know 

exactly when to breathe

exactly how to stay 

just ahead of the beat?

Confident

Vulnerable

In her words “laughed at by the gods”

Teasing her hair up just before the show

lining her eyes in long strokes like a Pharaoh

She is sex honest on stage

Brandishing belly she pours her frail brute strength down inside your head like Alambic Brandy, and you smack your lips

Ah

that burns so smooth, pour me another

I stretch and relax

The first verse a frisky kitten 

jumps into my reverie and tears through it

emerging as a bobcat

carrying in her jaws the broken limp prey

of yesterday’s arrangements

I acquiesce to her genius

Copyright © Catherine G. Tripp

As published in the Haight Ashbury Literary Journal Summer 2022