I finally wore out my Miles Davis album 

And had to find another one.

This one has even more songs,

But my favorite ones come in a rearranged order.

I forget I’m listening,

Then the bottom drops out of my heart like grief,

As if, by ice dropping into a glass,

Or at the first hearing of the familiar piano,

I might see a love I used to know.

Then I remember everything, 

About my life,

And even things I never knew

About Miles...

Like how he grew up in East St.Louis,

In a day, when most black Americans We’re barely paid, still almost considered slaves.

His dad was an oral surgeon, and they had money,

But it didn’t afford them the luxury

Of escaping family tradition.

The irony of his dad’s attacks against his mother

Was one, in particular, in which 

He knocked all her front teeth completely out,

And she had to find another oral surgeon 

In town to help her.

His parents pushed him to attend the Juliard  School of music,

Wanting to influence him classically,

But he took up with the trumpet,

And made his debut in jazz and blues,

For what else is there?

I pull the plug on the bathtub before I’m through,

And hurry to scrub my dirty feet

Before the rest of the water drains.

This way I’m dry as I emerge,

And I don’t have time to give in to the urge to cry.

Now, I’m steeled for the day,

In case happiness try and sway me

To some more classical way to be,

By one strong shot of half-ass Juliard,

And a pint of finely aged “So What?”

-jenn