copulating beneath a full moon,
& we can call this the first
rhythm because sex is what
nudged the tongue awake
& taught the hand to hit
drums & embrace reed flutes
before they were worked
from wood & myth. Up
& down, in & out, the piston
drives a dream home. Water
drips ’til it sculpts a cup
into a slab of stone.
At first, no bigger
than a thimble, it holds
joy, but grows to measure
the rhythm of loneliness
that melts sugar in tea.
There’s a season for snakes
to shed rainbows on the grass,
for locust to chant out of the dunghill.
Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes, oh yes
is a confirmation the skin
sings to hands. The Mantra
of spring rain opens the rose
& spider lily into shadow,
& someone plays the bones
’til they rise & live
again. We know the whole weight
depends 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
