The saxophone used to glitter all on its own. With its untroubled throat, bottle-rockets flew out of the tubes at the speed of ecstasy. Harmonic swagger shared its feast at the church bell. Blessings arrived finger by finger; all at once they performed the miracle. The musician put spice into the silver. He held it out like a wand – music climbed his sleeves up to his shoulders. But it was as though he sank beneath a massive bridge, one whose beams topped him at the chorus. The moon was indecent because it had no verse. The sun was an imposter of the symphony. So grieving hands were made to tug and hope. A concert always loomed there like a shadow in his closet, a shadow with a beating heart. Strangers paid to see the angles of his elbows. Droplets of sweat gleamed like a wet mask stripped off by a stage curtain. The saxophone gave the player’s life a varied jazz; shopping lists got tallied shrill by shrill.