Roberta Schultz

Highwire


Some players cannot bear 
finger picks between the soft 
pluck and the resonating 

string. Tips wear blisters, dance 
liquid sacrifice over fretboard, caressing 
warm bronze, never scraping or buzzing  

angel breath from triads. I dodge 
the sound man's slings, duck 
thumb picker's arrows.  They would hoist

shields—bright clang of metal 
on metal. Wounded digits sense 
their way to truth. Daredevils inching

over taut steel. 
They feel the way, 
never looking down.


~


Roberta Schultz is a singer songwriter, teacher, and poet originally from Grant's Lick, Kentucky. Her poems have appeared in Motif, Waypoints, Kudzu and other anthologies. Outposts on the Border of Longing (Finishing Line Press, 2014) is her first chapbook of poetry.


~


return to poetry                      home