Little Sally and the Bull Fiddle God
by C.S.E. Cooney
(This is for Jack Hanlon.)
Oh, a god came down, took a look around For to see what he could see Saw a busy town, full of busy girls Well, he liked a busy bee And the god said, "Child, gonna make you smile Gonna set your skin aflame You can search the skies, but it’s in my eyes You’ll know glory, thrill and fame." And he talked the talk, and he walked the walk Like a hunter with his game And he burnt them up, and he didn’t balk 'Cause a god don’t got no shame So, the god looked left, and the god looked right Till he tumbled full in thrall She was such a sight, like a ragged rose Well, he liked thorns on this doll And the god said, "Girl, gonna hold you close Gonna love you swift and sweet Coulda strolled the world, never met a girl Made me feel all this heat." And she stood so still, though her heart did jolt At the god there on her street From his diamond grin to his lightning bolt And his skin as gold as wheat Little Sally said as she shook her head "I don't like your cunning face I don’t need your hand, got a three-man band And the love of a double bass Sure I fancy men with a music yen Better still if they can play But there ain't no boy that can match my joy When I play that certain way." Little Sally's smile drove the god right wild "Girl, I like you fierce and fey If by guile or art I can win your heart Then the rest of you I'll sway." With a big blue flash and a thunder crash Turned himself outside then in Had a fancy scroll and some f-shaped holes Six feet tall from head to pin That bull fiddle god, he shone red as blood And his strings were thick and long When he heard her gasp, he began to laugh And it echoed, deep and wrong "Oh, my Sal, my sweet, just admit defeat For you're weak and I am strong." Little Sally glared, told him, "I ain't scared — I could tame you with a song." Sally took her stance and began to dance That bull fiddle forth and back When he tried to fight she just set him right Gave his bout a little smack Sally stroked his bridge till he twitched and itched And his tailpiece it sighed Though he bucked about, still the notes poured out Like an avalanche or tide And she slapped and tapped and plucked and pulled Till he groaned and moaned and cried She split that fiddle right down the middle And that broken god he died Little Sally paused, let the pieces fall Then took up her double bass And she beamed at it, and it gleamed at her And her fingers picked up pace Soon the band joined in, hot and hard as sin And they played the midnight through Through the bar's last call and the dawn's slow crawl Rockabilly, jazz and blues Right into the day, still that band they played It's the only thing to do When you kill a god in a bass facade Which he wore for love of you.
C.S.E. Cooney lives and writes across the street from a Victorian Strolling Park. She is the author of How To Flirt in Faerieland and Other Wild Rhymes and Jack o' the Hills, both available on Amazon. Her most recent novellas, Martyr's Gem and How the Milkmaid Struck a Bargain with the Crooked One may be found online at GigaNotoSaurus. "Witch, Beast, Saint" the first of her erotic fairytales from The Witch's Garden series has appeared in Strange Horizons; if you like it, check out her novella in the same series, The Witch in the Almond Tree. The first novella in her Dark Breakers series is called The Breaker Queen. With her fellow artists in the Banjo Apocalypse Crinoline Troubadours, Cooney appears at conventions and other venues, dramatizing excerpts from her fiction, singing songs, and performing such story-poems as "The Sea King's Second Bride," for which she won the Rhysling Award in 2011.
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