an entire city in tears
singing jazz and rhythm
and jazz and the blues,
singing rhythm & jazz & the blues.

an entire city in tears
walking asphalt
with hands held
                like walkways
between towers,
twisting the wind into whirlwinds of sound
& a red handkerchief flicking on the wind,
whipping & lifting the sound of the wind
& the necks of the crying
                in one motion, one
waving, swaying, lilting, loving manyperson,
singing rhythm & jazz & the blues.

an entire city in tears
craning from windows & weeping,
sweeping the dust dragged past the parks
with their eyes.
        with their eyes: dust-dragged
past the parks with woodchips & leaves.
        with their eyes: worshipping
the centre of a congregation of walking widows
& widowers, craned to the windows
wearing black pockets & white handkerchiefs.
white handkerchiefs pointing at windows
with each proud breath from the chests of the mourners,
defiant & proud as the man that they follow,
the man that they swallow & carry
in a loud, black box through the streets --
singing rhythm & jazz & the blues.

an entire city in tears
& smattered with rain.
faces & coats & umbrellas & an old dog
pooled in the tears of the clouds like cities,
drinking the sky & coating the ground
in faces & puddles & an old dog,
bedraggled & dragging behind the umbrella,
but both low & howling,
        low & coated,
faces pooling in black-leather-shoe shaped patches of asphalt
soon to be coated with the sighs
& the padding rhythm of the dog,
black shorn claws following that box
coating the patches with howling,
singing rhythm & jazz & the blues.


        but, i've got you, dog,
        claws beaten back
        by the shadows of umbrellas.

        i've got you, dog,
        if your bark becomes wooden
        & the city cannot see you.

        i've got you when your coat becomes matted
        with the stares of mourners from windows
        & you can't lift the first paw
        in your leap to that box.
        
        i'll be ready with opposable thumbs
        to open the lid & lift it, to lift those paws
        & the prints that you left in the asphalt.

        i've got you when your tongue has lolled long in the dirt
        & the mites you've collected
        are lighting bonfires in your chest
        with the splinters from every time you bark,
        & they're dancing there, slack & jumbled like
        your legs all those years ago. & now, joints clacking
        like lipless trumpets preparing the dirge,
        they're stomping the splinters with bloodless souls,
        open & pumping the air they release,
        pumping the air through their bodies,
        like lipless trumpets preparing the dirge
        singing rhythm & jazz & the blues.