YOU SEND ME

was Sam's crossover hit;
Monk was about to play
The Five Spot
for a month at a time.
The year was 1957
and I was about to crawl into a closet
with a ten year old girl.
I was friendly with her cousin
who lived around the corner from me
in Brooklyn. Ever play strip poker?
she asked. I can play Go Fish & War,
I countered. Ever see a girl's thing?
she asked. Just my mother's,
I countered. That doesn't count,
she said, you wanna see one?
I do. Yes I do.
OK, but you have to show me yours.
Alright...when?
Right now, stupid.
We were in her parent's living room
and the sun was pouring over us
lighting the sins we were surely
committing. But sin is delicious
anytime, anywhere, any age,
no matter if you know
what the hell you're doing
or not.
I slipped off my polo shirt
& squirmed out of my dungarees.
Now you, I said, holding fast
to my underwear.
She unbuttoned her white blouse
& took it off; nothing much
there. Stood up & wriggled
out of her blue & black checked skirt;
her Catholic school uniform
& placed herself before me.
Let's go into the closet, she said.
I didn't know precisely why
she said that, but I didn't argue
with experience.
She left the door open
and removed her panties.
I stared at it; it was
so smooth,
so contained,
I could have looked forever.
Now you, she said. Dazed,
I slipped them off
feeling the heat rise
in my neck & face.
What thrills I had
looking & touching & licking
trouble.

Somewhere Sam is sweetly
making love to a microphone;
& Monk, that lover
of the inexpressable note,
has heard what he alone
is able to hear & is dancing
around his keys.
In due time
I will find them both
and they will be part
of the whole, the whole
crazy thing
we call
memory.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

SUMMER

has always
reminded me
of summer--
from the first jolt
of blistering 90+
my voice rises,
gets higher;
Beethoven's 128
becomes 18, a funeral dirge
changes into Frankie Lymon,
nipples signify
not mom,
but hope,
mystery & night
are my double helix;
a tough tattoo
sings do-wop
just because
it can.
Where else should my fingers go
if not across the expanse
of a bra strap
fumbling with hooks
& fever; what's more
exciting than learning
how to smoke
& French kiss
with your older cousin?
You drop dime after dime
on new sides: The Miracles,
Shirelles or Drifters.
What is more miraculous
than a pool ball banked
or a basketball kissing backboards
or the one/three pocket in an alley?

And what is more impossible
than imagining yourself
here...
now...
suddenly weighted,
arrived at what was
once your forest
of motives,
your dark wood,
only to find
you're really
nowhere?

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016