In your kitchen it will always be late summer,
Bessie Smith churning through the blues,
some piano fluttering to keep up.
A CD whirs through its moment
of near collapse, opts to skip
over scratches — a delicate thing,
technology, so susceptible to cracks
or bumps; she hates to see
that evening sun go down. She
hates to see that evening sun go down.
A child of rationing, you recalled
scraping the last suspicion of jam
out of a wartime pot, entire focus
on mining that sweet vein trapped
in glass, music sounding
on the wireless, your feet tapping
to some sturdy melody, bombproof,
something anyone could sing to, not
to hear the evening sun go down, covering
your mouth as you said, as though
embarrassed by another generation
of dentistry, we hate
to see that evening sun go down.
Child evacuated from memory, membrane
tinged with whiskey, a mystery
of unpeeled years, ripe as nuts,
perfect in their past completeness
on a table, bare wooden back
of another time. Stains of fat
on a plastic mat must have been mine,
only because there’s no one else
left hating to see that evening sun
go down. I hate to see that
evening sun go down.
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