Interlude
The trumpet at the end of the tunnel burns a slow jazz,
the way I always wished that I could throw my voice like
the devil with a glass of single malt, the kind
where you can still taste the char from the barrel,
a lukewarm hint of flame,
a quiet dance around the wood chips.
The way you tugged the collar on my favorite blue shirt
like I was about to tip over, and for once I would have been okay
with falling. For once I would
have dropped
like a couple rain drops from the grats, not quite weightless, not quite
swaying like bent metal, like the water pooling beneath the streets
The man in the navy surplus jacket, the lungs behind the brass,
stands crouched over a splintered bench, not waiting for the train—
Maybe waiting for someone to listen to the steady G,
the low B tucked beneath the iron and asphalt, the way
that concrete echoes and darkness can find a way to call to us,
a longing not unlike like the metal from a turnstile pushing into your hip.
A train digs its nails into the tracks, and I think that
if anything’s still burning down here it’s me,
wrapped up in wool and a shade of cotton. And if the devil needs a dozen
names, then I'm telling you, at least one of them is saying to us
You know you could follow me down here. I could tear this music
through you all the way home.