Togetherness

Someone says Tristan 
& Isolde, the shared cup 
& broken vows binding them, 
& someone else says Romeo 
& Juliet, a lyre & Jew’s harp 
sighing a forbidden oath, 
but I say a midnight horn 
& a voice with a moody angel 
inside, the two married rib 
to rib, note for note. Of course, 
I am thinking of those Tuesdays 
or Thursdays at Billy Berg’s 
in LA when Lana Turner would say, 
“Please sing ‘Strange Fruit’
for me,” & then her dancing 
nightlong with Mel Torme, 
as if she knew what it took 
to make brass & flesh say yes
beneath the clandestine stars 
& a spinning that is so fast 
we can’t feel the planet moving. 
Is this why some of us fall 
in & out of love? Did Lady Day 
& Prez ever hold each other 
& plead to those notorious gods? 
I don’t know. But I do know 
even if a horn & voice plumb 
the unknown, what remains unsaid 
coalesces around an old blues 
& begs with a hawk’s yellow eyes.