Originally posted 4/22/2012; original title “Django, 2:48 AM.”

Predawn.  Nothing is happening here.
My wild-haired silhouette hulks
in the corner mirror.

Django’s improbably on the radio; he and
Stephane are tearing it up
happy hot-club style.

I have no role to play in this
as no one knows I am listening
and all the players are long since dead.

The song ends. Django, if he were alive,
would have called a break now, lit a cigarette,
probably one pulled from a hardshell case.

Me?  I’m (of course) out of cigarettes.
My left-hand ring and pinky fingers
suddenly ache.  There’s no way

I could ever get my hair
to behave like his, and my full,
average hands mock me, reminding me

that I have no role to play here beyond the one
where I collapse with envy and wonder back into sleep
before the radio taunts me again.