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  • Sonnet Ending with a Line by Miles
  • Stephen Cramer (bio)

'Trane, of course,           could start with a phrase & keep           shattering it until                       he'd been through                       every shuffled                                   combination           until, fracture upon                       fracture, he blew                       the phrase from every                                   different angle, the run           collapsing back into itself,                       the quicktransit of his fingertips blurred           in the sweep           of those furious                       calisthenics

The man had a lot to say,           & the truth           is culmination                       was hard, so he tended                       to carry on . . .                                   When he asked his colleague           Miles ('Trane was still a sideman)                       how to end                       a solo, Miles only laughed,                                   took a swig,& rasped, you take the damn horn           out your mouth. [End Page 489]

Stephen Cramer

Stephen Cramer's first book of poetry, Shiva's Drum, was selected for the National Poetry Series by Grace Schulman. His second, Tongue & Groove, was published by University of Illinois Press in 2007. He teaches writing and literature at the University of Vermont.

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