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on small silences

      we fit ourselves into.

      High heels at daybreak

      is the saddest refrain.

      If you can see blues

      in the ocean, light & dark,

      can feel worms ease through

      a subterranean path

      beneath each footstep,

      Baby, you got rhythm.

      TOGETHERNESS

      Someone says Tristan

      & Isolde, the shared cup

      & broken vows binding them,

      & someone else says Romeo

      & Juliet, a lyre & Jew’s harp

      sighing a forbidden oath,

      but I say a midnight horn

      & a voice with a moody angel

      inside, the two married rib

      to rib. Of course, I am

      thinking of those Tuesdays

      or Thursdays at Billy Berg’s

      in L.A. when Lana Turner would say,

       Please sing ‘Strange Fruit’

      for me, & then her dancing

      nightlong with Mel Tormé,

      as if she knew what it took

      to make brass & flesh say yes

      beneath the clandestine stars

      & a spinning that is so fast

      we can’t feel the planet moving.

      Is this why some of us fall

      in & out of love? Did Lady Day

      & Prez ever hold each other

      & plead to those notorious gods?

      I don’t know. But I do know

      even if a horn & voice plumb

      the unknown, what remains unsaid

      coalesces around an old blues

      & begs with a hawk’s yellow eyes.

      TWILIGHT SEDUCTION

      Because Duke’s voice

      was smooth as new silk

      edged with Victorian lace, smooth

      as Madame Zajj nude

      beneath her mink coat,

      I can’t help but run

      my hands over you at dusk.

      Hip to collarbone, right ear

      lobe to the sublime. Simply

      because Jimmy Blanton

      died at twenty-three

      & his hands on the bass

      still make me ashamed

      to hold you like an upright

      & a cross worked into one

      embrace. Fingers pulse

      at a gold zipper, before

      the brain dances the body

      into a field of poppies.

      Duke knew how to listen

      to colors, for each sigh shaped

      out of sweat & blame,

      knew a Harlem airshaft

      could recall the whole

      night in an echo: prayers,

      dogs barking, curses & blessings.

      Plunger mute tempered

      by need & plea. He’d search

      for a flaw, a small scar,

      some mark of perfect

      difference for his canvas.

      I hold your red shoes,

      one in each hand to balance

      the sky, because Duke

      loved Toulouse-Lautrec’s

      nightlife. Faces of women

      woven into chords scribbled

      on hotel stationery—blues,

      but never that unlucky

      green. April 29th

      is also my birthday,

      the suspicious wishbone

      snapped between us,

      & I think I know why

      a pretty woman always

      lingered at the bass

       clef end of the piano.

      Tricky Sam coaxed

      an accented wa-wa

      from his trombone, coupled

      with Cootie & Bubber,

      & Duke said, Rufus,

       give me some ching-chang

       & sticks on the wood.

      I tell myself the drum

      can never be a woman,

      even if her name’s whispered

      across skin. Because

      nights at the Cotton Club

      shook on the bone,

      because Paul Whiteman

      sat waiting for a riff

      he could walk away with

      as feathers twirled

      among palm trees, because

      Duke created something good

      & strong out of thirty pieces

      of silver like a spotlight

      on conked hair,

      because so much flesh

      is left in each song,

      because women touch

      themselves to know

      where music comes from,

      my fingers trace

      your lips to open up

      the sky & let in

      the night.

      WOMAN, I GOT THE BLUES

      I’m sporting a floppy existential sky-blue hat

      when we meet in the Museum of Modern Art.

      Later, we hold each other

      with a gentleness that would break open

      ripe fruit. Then we slow-drag

      to Little Willie John, we bebop

      to Bird LPs, bloodfunk, lungs paraphrased

      ’til we break each other’s fall.

      For us there’s no reason the scorpion

      has to become our faith healer.

      Sweet Mercy, I worship

      the curvature of your ass.

      I build an altar

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