Miles Davis

Miles makes the California sun

taste like Harlem.

While I lay upon this rough, wooden deck

the notes that he

squeezes out of brass lungs

and reeded lips

drip like thick brown molasses,

but yellow and red across my eyelids.

These sunspots know him, and they move

in tune with his pleading, vocal fist,

neatly,

before he bleats out a change of pace;

as if expected, as if promised,

but coming unannounced, and

foolishly uninvited.

It clings to my skin like a sweaty, reddish brown

dress at the center of an over-crowded,

juke joint, dance floor;

turning my blood into hot sangria—out of place,

but there’s too much

daylight for it to be bourbon—

and it’s just too damned soulful to be Scotch.

Even the blackbirds seem hipper,

like bee-bopping bartenders, as they glide

overhead and stop mid-flight to stand and clap

at the crescendo of the trumpet solo.

And the wee wah wah that drags across

the pine trees tops off the summer.

And that’s when the wah, wah, of the horn hat

and the melange of the dah, dah, weeeeeh

splashed,

and damn.

That was like getting a kiss where a bite

should have been.

Yeah.

Now, little bird, I get your jazz.