Snub Mosley, 1905

by Jeffrey Hecker

Little Rock. Hotel Marion claims six short stories, none coming of age. An estate called Deaf and Dumb Asylum exists. Even back then nobody talks about why, or wants to believe a water tower is devoted to the whole backyard. Brunswick. Sepia Series. Blues at High Noon. Swing Era’s last baby bone player born will invent slide sax, record with Fats Waller. Sonora. Squash Head. Decca. June in January. Do you ever think of me? Somebody stole my break. On Google Maps, you can zoom too close the beautiful building he died. Hard to tell the season on a laptop. 555 Edgecombe Ave., Harlem, fourteen long stories tall, all about overcoming monsters.

Digable Planets, In Living Color, 1993

by Jeffrey Hecker

Facts: a cactus needle is known botanically as a glochid. Doodlebug and Ladybug and Butterfly step sequentially onto stage left into lilac light. Exosphere clothes layers. Denim warp and weft and Fly Girl Jennifer Lopez. Death grants symphonies eternal life. Meantime this trio has 90 seconds to mix, wish, vision, position, accomplish mission. End credits scroll, cut short active rap. Don’t worry, I tell my kid brother, despite Fox Television executives, “Rebirth of Slick” debuts ad-free ad infinitum.

Jeffrey Hecker (he/him) is author of Rumble Seat (San Francisco Bay Press, 2011) & chapbooks Hornbook (Horse Less Press, 2012), Instructions for the Orgy (Sunnyoutside Press, 2013), and Ark Aft (The Magnificent Field, 2020). Recent work is forthcoming in Bennington Review and Quarter After Eight. A fourth-generation Hawaiian-American, he teaches at The Muse Writers Center & reads for Quarterly West. @jeffrey_hecker