Lou Rawls

He seems out of place in an Albuquerque
airport scuffle, a heated exchange
with a flight attendant, a woman, in the news
on the radio, their words harsh, acidic,
bodies tense, so I wonder if it got physical
and what started it, a misunderstanding?
Or did one, Lou or the flight attendant,
think the other unfair, or even abusive?

Out of place because the Lou Rawls
I recall, a crooner, smoothly takes the mic
from its stand; it’s in hand, on stage,
under the spotlight, and he’s all range,
modulation, control. He’s got the crowd
in his hands, the whole world of the Apollo
Theater, as he sings, effortless, melodious
notes that start from the diaphragm and flow

out to the orchestra, up to the mezzanine
and higher, to the balcony, in songs
as diverse as the crossover ballad,
“The Shadow of Your Smile,” about beauty
and memory, (picture two lovers at dusk
walking on a seashore), and the gritty “Saint
James Infirmary” (picture a stiff on a morgue
slab, toe-tagged; a mourner, head bowed,

and, like the singer, all about mortality).
“Let her go, … gone wherever she might be,”
Rawls sings. A long wire arcs from the mic
to the floor he crosses, the stage he owns.
I didn’t know then, he’d started in gospel,
with The Highway Q. C.’s. But I do know
he sounded better in person than on studio
records, Lou Rawls live at the Apollo.