If a crow’s awake
this late or this early,
it’s breaking news.
If there are crows out there
who have three AM opinions,
they are keeping them
to themselves.
If there are
insomniac crows,
they probably die young.
They probably die
young, die sick and silent,
their eyes hardening,
their bodies falling headlong from their perches —
but are killed only rarely
by the crow’s greatest enemy and predator,
the owl.
The all-night college radio station
is playing a shuffle mix
of current rock,
poetry, jazz, stupid PSAs.
Right now, something
by Django Reinhardt.
I take note
of this moment.
Nothing
is happening.
There is a wild-haired
silhouette in the corner mirror.
Django is comping along
while Stephane Grappelli
is tearing it up
happy hot-club stylee
on fiddle.
I have no role to play
in the delicious moment of waiting
for the next moment
to shuffle up.
I don’t have a role to play;
nevertheless, I’ve used the “I”
four times now
in speaking of the moment,
five if you count
the one in quotes.
A smoking man, Django was.
He would have called a break now,
Would have lit a cigarette,
probably one pulled from a hardshell case.
On my left hand,
the middle and ring fingers
suddenly,
obscurely,
ache.
Dark Matter
Dark Matter 