The Law of Falling Bodies: Poems

Do the Do

Do the Do When the drummer tattoos his snare And puts the hammer down on the high hat, Taking a stick to the blues, The band kicks in, Uptown Louie and the Regulators, Brawl of piano and a foghorn sax, gitstrings On rhythm and lead, with a fat bass at the bottom. This ain’t no martini music, chanteuse In a throaty hush, smoke wrapped around her Like a fox-head stole, brushes soft on the tight skin. This is mayhem in the neighborhood, rimshots and beer. It brings the ladies out Like a hard knuckle knocking at the back door. It gets the mopes and the gimps and the bedridden up And slips their sockets loose Until they do the do with a shaky strut. Louie’s looking good tonight in a Hong Kong suit. He’s got the hair and the sneer And a voice rough as creosote on a telephone pole. Skeeter can make his left hand Slap the scales around until they scream And leap like the Holy Ghost boogie of Jerry Lee. 65 • • • That’s “Night Train” you hear, Bad Alvin on the honk and slur— Ten years on the road to earn his scars In a dozen duck-for-cover bands. It’s all jism and jungle, late love and cheroots, Sweat equity on the dance floor. Somebody lies about his rusty heart. Somebody don’t. And now it’s “Harlem Nocturne,” low in the gut, Time split down the middle By a midnight clock, air going blue on a slow drip. Louie nods once at the tired room And lets the last chord linger, so sweet, so sad That even the dim light trembles at the end of the song. • • • 66 ...