Judee Sill put Jesus
in the passenger seat

beside desire, heroin, Bach,
and whoever hadn’t called back.

No seatbelts.

Her chords kept opening doors
behind other doors,

a hymn became
a love song,

the love song
became mathematics,

then angels everywhere

looking embarrassed
to have been discovered.

She sang softly,

strange, considering the size
of the things she was singing about.

God. Death. Salvation. Sex. Loneliness.

The usual.

Other singers tried
to reach the stars.

Judee Sill seemed more interested
in discovering who tuned them.

And then she disappeared.

The terrible ordinary business
of being gifted, wounded, alive, then not.

The records remained.

Quiet little machines
asking big questions.

Put one on and her voice enters the room.

She sings about heaven
like someone who checked the map

but isn’t entirely sure
the road is open.

Then comes another chord,

stranger than the one before it,

and you understand

Judee Sill was trying
to find the hidden harmony

that proved

there had been another world
inside it

the entire time.