Misbehaving

In summer late at night
from the next house I hear
soca played
just loud enough to be
too loud
for that time of night.

Soca singers
speak approvingly of
misbehavior.
They speak of 
bacchanal,
carnival,
wining,
jumping up.

Sometimes
the music’s just
the usual soundtrack
of the moment.
Then we hear
of people who

get wild,
go wild,
go crazy.
Roofs are raised and then burned
and sometimes blown off.
Faces melt, 
asses shake minds free,
someone’s turned
up and turned out and 

where are you tonight, love?

Not here, not in my
soft and resigned bed.
You’re elsewhere,
misbehaving, shaking,
crazy from the heat in the dark.
Happy.

I’m tossing Fats Waller
and his sweet jazz
off the radio
right now.  

Leaving the house to burn.  

I will come to you 
smoking
from the wreckage

and then, then,
singers and rockers
and rhymers of every stripe

are going to have to come up
with something new to say
about joy,
and rut, and 
abandon.  

New invitations
to party.  

New gasoline
for that oldest fire.