Jazz Poems

CHARLES PARKER: ALMOST LIKE BEING IN LOVE

These are the shadows of water when water

is thick and no longer transparent

They are everywhere–on the walls

across the ceiling.

It was always this good.

One night you undressed me in your sleep.

Very slowly, you told me later. You said I smelled good.

The sweater i said I’d taken it

out of the drawer where I kept

my winter clothes.

It smelled of pine and a long summer.

No, you said. Not wood.

More like the inside of a saxophone case,

all velvet and sweet regrets.

All blues, I said. Blues

and whatever shadows are made of,

I said, falling on you like slow water.

DIONISIO D. MARTINEZ

from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young

SUITE TABU 200

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