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Euphonia
Before any girl woman food reefer
Before any nutmeg
Benzedrine junk there was only
One queen
One baby
My confidant
My silver-plated celestial city
My first love of 1933
My Euphonia
My horn
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She was my Times Square vortex
Of boundless plasticity
My Silver Barium Palace of Versailles
My Empress
Who only wanted to rest
Her naked bottom
On a little pillow set
In the crook of my left thigh
She who
Sent her Thuringian pedal tones
Down and down
My belly pelvis legs soles of my feet
In vibration
Down through the oil-soaked dirt
Under the house
She who only wanted my arms
Around her miraculous tubes
My fingers
In the natural position of fingers
On the caps of her whisper-smooth
Pearl valves
Her breasts everywhere
An eloquence of curves
Dancing around her Vesuvian rocket
Nozzle bell
Always pointed into steep caramel pink
Causeways of sky
All the places I wanted to fly
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I find her in a silver-buckled case
Becoddled
In powder-puff indigo velvet
Protected from dents
Scratches unkindness disrespect
And the majestic
regal cyclops eye
Of her lowest tones unmoored
Unashamed
All she wanted
Was for me to empty myself
Inside her
To open all those causeways
To Birdland's winding boulevards
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Behind the Cherry Blossom
Dream voice to 12-year-old at 1516 Olive Street
Kansas City, Missouri, October 31, 1932:
We give you fine-haired ears within ears
A twisting cave system of ears lined up in rows
A pale species of corn growing around a crater
On the dark side of the moon a Fibonacci whorl
Of swinging Einsteinian locomotive clubs
Radiating in all directions from 18th and Vine
The Reno The Subway The Cherry Blossom
Fox Tavern El Capitan The Hey-Hay Zelmaroda
Paseo Tavern Lucille's Paradise (to name a few)
Destinations along the Birdlandian Riviera
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We give you pulpits pulverized into a mixture
Of Benzedrine and sawdust rockettes tossing
Piney brown moss invitations to the sighted
We give you 12 Clouds of Joy The Blue Devils
Give you Ernie Williams George Hudson Lester Young
Give you Jessie Stone and the Blue Serenaders
George E. Lee and His Singing Novelty Orchestra
Bennie Moten and his Kansas City Orchestra
Give you the wailing trumpet salvations of Hot Lips Page
And hysterical conversations between hoodoo
Splendid ghost clarinets and wah-wah trumpets
All thumping hydra-necked braids of blues
They ride the northeast wind up and down
Chatterleaf streets searching you out by smell
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We give you trash cans in a cat-bashed row
In the funk alley behind The Cherry Blossom
You are about to crawl over the gray battered lids
Up on tiptoes improvised from more tiptoes
You are about to fingersmear open a window
Within a window and press your nose to the hole
And see Mary Lou Williams in a marshflower cave
of blue vodka spinners her long cana lily arms
In the piano's midnight backstop world
Shiny carob swan of midnight in g-minor
Among sweaty firebox arms and devilments
And tea-headed devisements the freefall exhalation
Of a kiss and Lester Young with horn in hand
Is about to raise moon-shorn rafters everywhere
You taste the living breath through her fingers
His debonair aorta of horn geysering sparks
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Midwest Review 