In My Dream
I worried about my daughter,so I was shaken awakebecause I have no daughter, and whateverknowing looks, whatever cakeswe could have baked together, whatever giftswe could grant one another, they wereslipping out of sight, the way parents do,to those who belong only to the worldof writing and thinking. There was no body there.Of course there’d have been bribes,chastisements, attention-getting manipulations:but whose would they be? There was a trampoline,maybe a carousel, a clumsy gesture….I was raising her up so she could see:it was a nightmare. A nightmare I tell you, a nightmare.
Thelonious Monk of Weehawken
There are no wrong notes—Thelonious Monk
In the third setof Monk’s last gig, the same tuneshe played since 1950rocked a little something inside us.
Had we been therewhen his fingers first stirred things up,we might have bowedto his…
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The American Poetry Review (Digital) - 1 Issue, November/December 2018