TORCH SONG
All night I sit next to his bed.He squeezes the dried bark
of a photograph. In sunlight vanished,
she smiles. I hear his torch song:
If still alive out there somewhere
and cold and snow finally shut you in
the attic of whom you might have been,
why not try me on for size again?
Put me on like you so always put me on!
A gin joint slouched panama brim
over those gorgeous eyes,
kisses cut with bootleg rum,
glimpsing your calves and even your knees,
saxes and 'bones ignite into rutting heat,
bow ties knot demblackselves silly
trying hard not to dance!
(I never asked for love,
Just a chinaman’s chance)
As the great disappearing act ends –
you from me, I from am,
then from now --
murmur me a memory
of the worlds I saw in you
of something you saw in me.
Come! Here and now;
let us breathe again to speak,
kiss and weep in the lost tongues of
all our dead seas and buried cities.
ã 2005 Bruce Jewett
