You think I want this adulation?
This reverence, worship, adoration?
All I can think of is fiddling, jigging,
bow dancing across my strings like breath
striking my ribs with a tornado wind,
Cajun and Zydeco revelers in a circle, each
foot stomping my rhythm in the dirt
of Louisiana, each humming with me
as I sonorously saw my songs.
Instead, here I am in an Indiana
concert hall resting while he delicately
plucks an e-string, smoothly slides across
the bridge, fingers selecting fine formality.
I, impatiently wait for the orchestra to join
in with their oboes, flutes, basses and the harp’s
twinkling glissando, hoping for a riff of sweet notes,
that will last. But no. We meld in a romantic sweep
toward high G to drop off in an A minor finish.
Does he know how I long for Jambalaya, crawfish pie
and étouffée buffets where I’m fiddled with gusto?

Jackie Langetieg has published poems in literary magazines such as Verse Wisconsin, Blue Heron Review. She’s won awards: WWA’s Jade Ring contest, Bards Chair, and Wisconsin Academy Poem of the Year. She is a regular contributor to the Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar. She has written five books of poems, most recently, Letter to My Daughter and a memoir Filling the Cracks with Gold.