Read Excerpts from The Chaffin Journal

Poetry

            In reviewing my accomplishments-dubious work history, worthless humanities degrees, grizzled hair, and a larger Mastercard balance than my highest-ever yearly salary-I find it hard to realize that once I was sophisticated, noble, grand-a child prodigy.  In fact, the day I turned ten marked the pinnacle of my career.  On that particular Saturday, I wore my long hair in a French twist.  Usually it was my big sister who worried about style, but for my guitar lesson I had donned lace and arranged this adult ‘do.  Though, when I arrived, trash and cottonseed littered by teacher’s bedraggled backyard, I was fit to stun the finest courts of Europe.  Or so I imagined.

            "Well, let’s start," Mr. Minter, oblivious, said.  "And don’t lose the Master."  I was supposed to hold in my mind at all times Andres Segovia’s perfect form.  But technical brilliance came without study.  Playing Bach and Weiss, fugues careening against factories, I coaxed perukes and Lutherans from every vibrato.  "Welcome to South Salt Lake, Center of Industry,"  read a municipal sign planted on Mr. Minter’s street-when I closed my eyes, Bach Prelude for Lute acquired a clavichordian tautness echoing the statuary of Cöthen.