I woke up last night from a lucid dream
about loving you


I was smiling too when
my eyelids lifted
from their resting spots like old men
in arm-chairs.

We sat on a rooftop.
(Big sky, little us)
Do you remember
the words?
Your face in sepia tone glow of the city lights
as you spoke, and

I could hear Miles Davis
blowing on a clanky old saxophone
all the stars crossed
and your perfume.

It was a black and white
car-drive sock-hop film scene
It was 1950.
I was a bird and you were
buzzing like a bee and I whistled and
be-bop shoo-wopped out of tune in step
with you.

I wanted to be, oh to be,
the horn at your lips (your
Fingertips kissing the brass, bending
flat breaths into mad songs
and perfect melodies).

Sometimes love and jazz
though are more about mistakes –
about messing up, and
trying to salvage something out of the wreckage.

You
see, a song is a thousand wrong
notes at just the right time and
love is two people that shouldn’t be
but are.

We dance a discordant waltz
you and I
beneath a moon made big
for awestruck lovebirds
squalling and gawking

Do you
hear them?
Listen closer.

That horn breaths life
like God’s seven day genesis
in a six minute
tenor sax solo
and chain-link patter
on the snare drum.

The summer night! Oh,
that summer night
my darling.

We all dance in graceless missteps.
That’s love and jazz, if you hear it.

That’s love and jazz:

Saying all the wrong
things, playing all the wrong notes
and thinking it’s the most beautiful
thing you ever heard.


I could hear Miles Davis
A clanky old saxophone
Every crossed star
And your perfume.

The most beautiful
thing
I ever heard.