Tonight at the Blue Monk Cafe

Tonight at the Blue Monk Café

jazz shimmers in the air like heat,
notes dapple the room like sunlight through leaves.
Jazz trickles like water to thirsty lips.
My lips are thirsty for something else,
as I slide my finger around the rim of my Blue Monk Rita
licking the salt off and
staring into the blue flame flickering upon our table,
dancing to the blue jazz of the Blue Monk Café.
Where are you now?
I can't shake the feeling we should be together,
but the driving rhythm intervenes.
My heels are tapping out their own music
and the man next to me,
the man who isn't you, is strumming my neck
with his fingertips.
You're far away in a land of silk and exotic dark-eyed women.
And what have I got on them?
If I could find the right words, I think you'd love me, but they slip away
like jazz I won't remember tomorrow.
How is it I've failed so utterly?
The answer's lost in the pounding of the drum,
in the deep notes of the string bass.
I know my heel is still tapping against the floor,
but I can't feel it.
The last of my drink shimmers in a blue ring at the bottom of my glass,
beckoning, a hope.
I'm half here now.
The rest of me must be in the Blue Monk Rita.
Tell me again why you don't love me,
why small almond-eyed girls are more beautiful
than I could ever hope to be?
The answer's lost to the saxophone, flinging its golden notes across the room,
and to the last flicker of the blue candle as it shudders
and goes out.
In the darkness the jazz pours over me like waves
and I let it take me.