Jazzmen

By Lee Meitzen Grue

Mister, your eyes are bright blue numbers

rimmed in white enamel.

I like to look at your 

diamond crackle

when you middle finger

your bright-lipped horn.

You pour music into my upturned face

I'm so happy

I can't stop laughing.

Old Sly -face, the piano player,

half-masks his eyes   smug cat

says:

How do you like that?

I like it.

I like men who play music

who bind me in their fine conspiracy.

My man says: STOP IT.

You give yourself to the piano player

the bass      the horn     the thin

reed of the clarinet

I can't listen to his talk

when there's music.

when there's music.

This music. I like

men who make music.

There's never been anything as good

as that note.

Oh, you're sly, piano man,

his eyes say:

I know it     I know it

then the cornet takes it somewhere up

and the horn,

the horn is an astronaut

saying mundane things at heights profound

promising me walks in space

trips at the end of a live wire,

landings     landings,

but it stops somewhere

midair

he puts down his horn

shakes out a cigarette

lights it     nods.

Oh, God, Alice,

I know how it feels to

fall.

The man takes my arm

says: Let's go now.

Instruments float the bandstand,

the bus tour pulls out in waves

foaming

tables     chairs strew the floor.

He pays the check

wades me past tables,

half-pulled out chairs,

musicians smoking on the stair.

We walk into a street

empty with let down glare

and distant buoys that bell in the night.

*   *   *   *   *

Source: French Quarter Poems (1979) Long Measure Press