Bags (for Milt Jackson)
by John Menaghan
John, musing, combs
the keyboard, gathers
notes, holding them,
herding chords into
his warm embrace.
Connie slants forward,
lost in a forest
of cymbals, keeping
the pace, slapping
sticks against drum
skins--tender, firm.
Percy's thin
fingers run in
a fretful frenzy,
stroking the neck
of the smooth
dark double-bass:
rosewood ballerina
perched on one
pointed foot in
her man's embrace.
But Bags leans
against a column
off to one side,
sticks under
folded arms,
hardly looking on.
Then spreading his arms
like a bear somnambular
after winter sleep
he pads to the vibraphone
reaches under
his arm
raises his weapons high
over rows of steel,
lets the mallets
drop.
Taut fists flash and flicker,
a flurry of punches,
a boxer's jabs.
The audience reels.
Brushfire spreads on chromatic steel.
Bags nods to applause
wanders back
to the column,
his sleepy lair.
E c h o e s of steel on fire
drift
through
the
smoke-filled
air.
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