Out-of-Body Experience

I rise, my head skimming the ceiling

It finally melts through it

I reach heights that stagger me

Positioned high above the parish line

In my nightshirt

Floating in the cold air

Around me a layer of

Room-temperature buffer

I can see the nighttime and glittering

New Orleans to my left

I go higher and higher until I can follow

The curves of the Mississippi

Cradles them both

Only one thing

Sifting this high up

To me

From down there

Faint atonal music

Tuning of an orchestra

No sound in hertz

But essence

All that music is

Easily reaches me

The soulful identifications from the beings

In this city who

Blow into horns

Drag hair across strings

Interdigitate with ivory

Making pure harmonic and melodic sense

In each of their pockets of attention

They blend into a sublime celestial arrhythmia

That makes perfect sense

When my mind cuddles it

And I walk on clouds