my life is a B flat seventh chord
a mixolydian outlier
rejoicing in its ‘otherness’
with melody twisting through
blue notes and minor thirds,
it resists the easy resolution
it lingers in the tonal cracks
improvising as it winds
its melismas of joy and sorrow
all the while knowing that in the
end it must succumb to the gravity
of the cadence’s pull and return
to the tranquility
of the ‘one’ chord