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Corona King

By Gordon Marshall
February 20, 2010
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for Louis Armstrong

I saw the Satchmo's shack of brick
needle stopped on record warped
humble as a corona with a cognac

fixtures plated gold reflecting me,
directing me to the "s'all" in early fall
stilling solos beat out on the balcony,

to the pitch of jet the great one spit
down the scarlet throat of the strike
zone, in the kitchen, oak, lacquered

to sheen of formica, blue as faith,
as the blues—as a word of faith
coronary period after coroner's

comma, the golden world leveraged
and salvaged from the garbage
of his youth, yonder into the blue.

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