Sneaking Out for Chiropractic Jazz

A poem about a restless night in New York.

My sleep cycle finished on Monday morning at 2:40am

Tagliatelle weighing in the stomach

Too warm in bed for autumn

Eyeballing a to-do list on the dark ceiling

A mess of things like:

Finish the drawings

Import all the writings

Follow up on that email

Initiate that talk

List what I want to become

List what I want to be around

Walk off the pent-up agoraphobia

Confront the self-doubt that has been leaden and sore

And the fear that has been knotting up

I had a lucky arrival, then, to a friend of a friend’s empty apartment

A week ago in the West Village

Even luckier to Smalls that first night

Restless impulse

To put on jeans and walk five minutes across the neighborhood into 3am

Dim inside, nearly empty with a band of six

Blue guitar, branded drums, biggest cello on Earth

Brass waiting in the wings

Grinning and taking turns on the mic

Then a muted trumpet started shyly

And every chord slowed to the tendrils in its mute

Notes curled within the bell

As the drums came to a slow boil

Crisp and controlled crooning

Sound of a blossom blooming

To form the soundtrack of Sunday bleeding into Monday

September bleeding into October

With tender but outstretched limbs

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