Gone to seed, ailanthus, the poverty

  tree. Take a phrase, then

fracture it, the pods' gaudy nectarine shades

    ripening to parrots taking flight, all crest

and tail feathers.

                        A musical idea.

                                             Macaws

  scarlet and violet,

                           tangerine as a song

the hue of sunset where my street becomes water



and down shore this phantom city skyline's

  mere hazy silhouette. The alto's

liquid geometry weaves a way of thinking,

    a way of breaking

synchronistic

                    through time

                                       so the girl

  on the comer

                     has the bones of my face,

the old photos, beneath the Kansas City hat,



black fedora lifting hair off my neck

  cooling the sweat of a night-long tidal

pull from bar to bar the night we went

    to find Bird's grave. Eric's chartreuse

perfume. That

                    poured-on dress

                                           I lived days

and nights inside,

                          made love

and slept in, a mesh and slur of zipper



down the back. Women smoked the boulevards

  with gardenias afterhours, asphalt shower-

slick, ozone charging air with sixteenth

    notes, that endless convertible ride to find

the grave

                whose sleep and melody

                                                  wept neglect

  enough to torch us

                           for a while

through snare-sweep of broom on pavement,



the rumpled musk of lover's sheets, charred

  cornices topping crosstown gutted buildings.

Torches us still-cat screech, matte blue steel

    of pistol stroked across the victim's cheek

where fleet shoes

                        jazz this dark

                                             and peeling

  block, that one.

                        Vine Street, Olive.

We had the music, but not the pyrotechnics—



rhinestone straps lashing my shoes, heels sinking

  through earth and Eric in casual drag,

mocha cheekbones rouged, that flawless

    plummy mouth. A style for moving,

heel tap and

                   lighter flick,

                                        lion moan

  of buses pulling away

                                  through the static

brilliant fizz of taffeta on nyloned thighs.



Light mist, etherous, rinsed our faces

  and what happens when

you touch a finger to the cold stone

    that jazz and death played

down to?

               Phrases.

                              Take it all

  and break forever—

                               a man

with gleaming sax, an open sill in summertime,



and the fire-escape's iron zigzag tumbles

  crazy notes to a girl cooling her knees,

wearing one of those dresses no one wears

  anymore, darts and spaghetti straps, glitzy

fabrics foaming

                      an iron bedstead.

                                               The horn's

  alarm, then fluid brass chromatics.

                                                  Extravagant

ailanthus, the courtyard's poverty tree is spike

and wing, slate-blue

                           mourning dove,

                                               sudden cardinal flame.

If you don't live it, it won't come out your horn.