Corner booth
Your eyes just pools of black
in the dim red light.
Everything else seems so far away.
Candles flickering like distant stars on each table.
On Tuesdays the band never stops,
just melts from one song to the next.
We smoked two bowls on the streets of Portland before we came
and we’re melting, too,
our cells leeching into the leather booth.

You’re distracted clapping for a drum solo when
my fingers flow over your knee.
I compose music on the inside of your thighs,
and your pulse keeps pace with the bass.
I’m glad I cajoled you into wearing a dress.

I can’t tell where my skin ends and the air begins
but I can feel the boundary between our bodies.
I break it during a sax solo.
They don’t let people smoke in here anymore
but the whole room feels hazy.
You a ball of heat beside me,
your huff of breath lost in the horns
I make sure you and the trumpet crescendo at the same time.

You are syncopation, emphasis in unexpected places,
I want to study your chord progression.
You’re Billie Holiday, backphrasing,
but you catch up for the chorus.
Sometimes I feel like we’re bebop
with our quick complication
but here we’re the blues, soulful and
something like gentle.