Somewhere above me
Drifting through the thin ceiling
Of an anywhere apartment
a wailing sound
Calls through the open window
out into the night.
A saxophone mayhap
from a poorly recorded jazz medley,
it has not aged well stolen away in some humid attic
But captured and alive again, nonetheless.
And no doubt years have passed
since each musician drank and smoked himself to death
penny-less and fueled by memories;
Did they realize
Something of them remains
on a scratchy piece of plastic?
And as ghosts they play on through the wind
carrying me into the back row
of a smoke-laden speak easy
The instruments floating on a stage dimly lit
Phantom fingers and lungs propelling the melody
playing on, for the ten thousandth time
Exactly as the first.