Delilah’s After Dark by Mia Day

I took a picture of the sound in the room,
and pressed pause on everything else
that wasn’t Delilah’s.
The microphone stood bold and silver, like the moon and
everyone felt like gleaming, unquestionable stars,
idolizing every energy scattered and combining
around them.
Silver and gold rings clank together to
make clapping sounds over
the fainting jazz that
I’d never heard before but somehow knew
every note to hum.
The wine sat in its personality,
with every sip the redness kissed my tongue,
kindling my throat until I was able
to forget the holes that were hiding in
my head and in the pretty bartender’s
shirt sleeves.
The mist came to a fog, and I smelt the
perfume and dry liquor soak the room.
The performers scattered themselves across
the stage and up the isles—
they looked like exotic fruit, ready to be picked
and my legs shook while the hair on my head grew
upwards towards the blank ceiling.
I couldn’t have told you what time it was—
there were no clocks or devices to draw our attention.
We had found another planet
and I was the astronaut voyaging
past everything I had known into
this speak-easy where no one had names, but they spoke easily and
everyone knew the right things to say.
Mia Day is a Graduate Assistant at the University of Memphis in Memphis, Tennessee where she is pursuing an MFA with a concentration in Poetry. She recently completed her BA in Creative Writing at Christian Brothers University, where she finished her last season of college soccer. She also currently works as on the editorial staff on The Pinch literary magazine out of the University of Memphis. Her work has been shown in the literary magazine, Red Planet Magazine and at her local news station, Action News 5.