Sweet Donna Lee
Donna Sullivan
My parents were beatniks
My dad blew the sax
His horse was hidden in the case of that axe
A frustrated musician
addicted to smack
One kid in her belly and one on his back
Bundled they trampled through
four feet of grey snow
piled high the hipsters shuffling off Buffalo
They settled their pedals
to find someplace warm
But he couldn’t resist the call of the horn
Through the fog and the smog
and the tears of that city
frayed arteries pumped poison, bloody and gritty
Something clean and pristine
through pain’s reverie
sounding Parker’s heroic jazz melody
And though I arrived
in the cold of November
He didn’t show up ‘til the end of December
In her best dress mom confessed
that she still hadn’t named me
So, Dad dropped the needle on sweet Donna Lee
14