Prohibition cried Time Out! and so

the world, when feeling down, went out and played

and partied for their pick-me-up. One day,

as unremarkable as any other,

I hoofed it to a speakeasy. There, three

jazz geniuses lit up the smoky world

with joyful turns so unlike any other

before or since, their sweetness born from sadness

(which was and is the wont of jazz) that, had

I been a writer, I’d have made them names

of note. Now, not all speakeasies had fire

doors. And that day, which started out

as unremarkable as any other,

some hepcat hooked on hooch who would be suave

lit up a cigarette and threw the match

down too far from a bin or ash tray. He’d

forgotten, in his brief inebriation

of that night, which seemed so like any other,

that hooch meant vomit. And sawdust. So, poof.

And none of those who did get out alive

could tell me the musicians’ names.

On my twenty-first birthday—this was still

in the Jazz Age—my father, who would have

his own be just like him, gave me an Old

Mr. Boston, The Guide to mixing drinks.

I learned to mix drinks and to think of it

as something suave. The book was red and thin

to fit down in a blazer’s inside pocket

so one could take it anywhere one went,

and so I did. I never thought that red

meant danger. But one day, unnotable

as any other, we took The Guide with

us on our yacht and went out past the three-

mile mark so we could drink. My father was

impressed, and even tickled, I mixed such

magnificent martinis, which he loved.

He kept me mixing “More!” and “More more MORE!”

and even told me to mix up a batch

for the crew, as well as the pianist

and chanteuse we’d hired for the day. The jazz

was heavenly as hooch. Now, looking back,

I realize that only the musicians

stayed sober. They had learned to sip so slowly

their glasses never emptied. (You can’t pass

out and get paid, after all.) But they were

not sailors, so when the storm hit, the yacht

went down, and everybody with it. As

the boat was sinking, I asked the chanteuse

and her accompanist, accomplished in

his own right as a master of the keyboard,

their names.

                            Even from Oblivion,

I’ve managed to dictate these pages to

a pen, who wrote it down, so I can be

where you are, be a part of you, if not

more than the breath of long ago, anon.

And if you close your eyes, you just might hear

between these lines the silence of jazz tunes

trilled and tickled by talents so sweet-sad

you’ll want to hear them over and over,

and even wonder, one day, on their name.

Or mine.