This month’s “Versed in Florida” poet is Allison Serraes. She’s a graduate student studying English literature at Florida Gulf Coast University. She also plays a bit of ukulele.
The Way She Plays
Ramona plays her ukulele
in an antique electric chair:
Nylon vibrates
under cool hands
like lightning
strumming keys on kites
like finger-picking
sonofusion
like palms
on plasma lamps—
like electric.
Ukulele, ukulele,
thick and cottony in the throat
like yucca. Booming
into the
soundbox of the sky.
Ukulele,
ukulele, Leilani,
luna, luminous—
electric eel,
lanikai, kilowatts under water
like blow-dryers in a bathtub
bubbling tides
waxing and waning
lanikai, lanikai,
undercurrent,
wave current
wavelength,
lambda equals velocity over frequency,
amplitudes and
oscillating acoustics
humming over humps
and plucked
into atmospheric electrostatic discharge.
Fluid ukulele,
of hands,
of islands,
of mahogany,
mahalo,
hula-hula dancing,
medulla oblongata
of breathing and blood pressure
ebbing and flowing,
of lobes,
of stems,
of auditory cortices,
of charged neurons—
electric.