Newport Jazz Festival 1958
Gerry Mulligan is playing -
the audience watches through cat's eye
glasses, shades, man, crew cuts,
pretty women in the half light
glazed with August, jazz
in all their indications.
Anita O'Day is singing "Sweet Georgia Brown"
perfectly pitched into the folding chairs
from the column of her black sheath;
she releases from her reedy throat
each pitch the band must mock
each note a scatty inspiration.
If I'm born again, I'll have
that voice, the strength of a B flat
clarinet, the upper reaches of a saxophone.
She could not have been invented without
a perfect metal music to
match herself against.
In the aisles couples begin to dance
the intricate jitterbug of cool
and my muscles tense for each
spin and turn, remembering those moves
as if they were tattooed, indelible.
The body's memory, balance tied
to unarticulated longings -
to be rich, to be smart, to be there,
the empty aisle, ours, splendidly
lit for evening, as we move as we must
under the capering moths.
I want that music with me everywhere,
my feet sliding and pivoting,
my voice pitched out across the front
in tune with everything.