News of the Flesh Wendy Taylor Carlisle In sweet, late August when a north wind first insinuates October rot, any meat- heavy breeze can sweat out neon, smell of music, salt muck, cigarettes & any jet-fueled band can lay back on a contract: Pensacola, ten weeks in a Motel Six, five players, four small rooms. Behind the bougainvillea hedge, the drummer & the bass man flipping quarters for the room that has a door. In weather like that, a dreadnought calls up lyrics from each Southern Comfort shot, the band plays late & stays awake until the early news of war & accidental death. News of the flesh calls them to sleep in dirty sheets while sundown melts the afternoon, & fans click overhead. The audience is small and dull, they say, the rent’s impossible and more than that, past due. They ask each other— weather, politics, the war, the blues— what’s most to blame? They say there’s nothing left to do but scramble eggs and start again.

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