The music had change and stretch,
marching the sidewalks,
turning heels and heads,
twisting the jazz in into shadows
with snap and burning
where fingers speak a language of
black tar streets and perfume
rolls on the sweat of hands
born into the arms of people
stacked in apartments
that cook in summer
and buzz cold in winter
but none of it breaks
the hallway of faces
and low alley eyes staring
at back seat sleepers,
concrete yards, patched streets
and parking lot yards
where music is the
tissue connecting the
colors of skin in the city
that’s the capitol of
the world.
Roger Singer 