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Dec 2020
I am streaming some old Jazz (Mingus, Duke Ellington, The Modem Jazz Quartet) 
From my phone via bluetooth
As I drive
To the store
When my brother Dave's ghost
chimes in:
It would sound better coming from a long play stereophonic record, he says. 

No doubt, I tell him
Surprised that I am not surprised
That he is in the car with me. 

We call it vinyl now, I tell him
I think he nods
Though I can't really see him. 

You know, he says, it is all about the intervals and the timing.
We listen for a while, then he says :
Something nobody really understood about me 
Is that I was a jazz improvisation
While I was alive.

I think, this makes no rational sense at all. 
Though I don't say it outloud, my brother responds:
No, it isn't about being rational
It's about the intervals and timing. 

And suddenly I understand him in a way I didn't when he was alive. 
I love you, I say
But he's gone
Jumped to an unexpected note.

Unexpected 
But perfect.
Written by
Joe Thompson
145
     Imran Islam and Seranaea Jones
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