a plunging stone

Though I scrubbed my feet

with myrtle and mint,

I did not make it to Chicago.

The caterpillars

of Black Swallowtails

work the rue,

and I,

I watch.

I watch as the day

Coltrane-rolls into afternoon;

Miles in jodhpurs, perhaps,

a white oxford shirt

half untucked,

leaning in on a single bright note—

a gooseneck lamp bent

over a desk of

whiskers and polka-

dots and moonbeams

through years

of eventides.

years.