Red Scarf
Feeling in the dark,
fumbling for the lightswitch,
housekey, gold nugget, love letter.
The poet’s typewriter was
carved from a block of jade.
Saffron ribbon, shift key for rhyming words.
He sits at a black
table with a red scarf,
only and still beneath the moon,
wailing with coyotes.
A lost uncle instills grief with
actuality, a resin pressed from the
late persona, the family in black,
real response to an undreamt loss.
The poet dines on sighs,
indigo vanity, a Zeus who
tosses bolts to no effect.
He cups the light and heat,
glories in the release,
sees them sucked into the hurly-burly.
He sits at the black table,
with the red scarf,
reads a Thursday sonnet,
wonders if he should have been a singer.
From the collection Fields of Satchmo
Photo by MJV
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