February in Sydney

Dexter Gordon’s tenor sax
Plays “April in Paris”
Inside my head all the way back
On the bus from Double Bay.
Round Midnight, the 50s.
Cool cobblestone streets
Resound footsteps of Bebop
Musicians with whiskey-laced voices
From a boundless dream in French.
Bud, Prez, Webster and The Hawk,
Their names run together riffs.
Painful gods jive talk through
Bloodstained reds and shiny brass
Where music is an anesthetic.
Unreadable faces from the human void
Float like torn pages across the bus
Windows. An old anger drips into my throat,
& I try thinking something good,
Letting the precious bad
Settle to the salty bottom.
Another scene keeps repeating itself;
I emerge from the dark theatre,
Passing a woman who grabs her red purse
& hugs it to her like a heart attack.
Tremolo. Dexter comes back to rest
Behind my eyelids. A lonliness
Lingers like a silver needle
Under my black skin,
As I try to feel how it is
To scream for help through a horn.

-Dexter Gordon