SUMMERTIME

The piano player clearly learned his chops
from some of the jazz greats
the way he wanders over the keys of that red
grand piano, like he's caressing a cat.
A cat as cool as the drummer
teasing cymbals with his soft brushes
tucked behind the gleaming upright bass
and the gent who walks his fingers
up and down those fat strings
pulling them like he's plucking pennies from a pail.
The singer
curves encouraged by a lacy black dress
is from Stittsville, not Harlem
but she conjures Ella
under moonlit skies with fireflies
beginning to see the light.

Years ago, a disease both
unpronounceable and incurable
blurred the singer’s vision to murk and shadows
yet she knows it’s her brother at my table
touches his shoulder and he bumps against her side.
He, visionary inventor of eyewear that gives
hundreds like his sister the marvel of sight, is
awkward and part blind himself 
post-stroke.

Back at the mic 
the singer smiles slow and sure.
Counts one to trigger the keyboard.
Counts two for a whisper of cymbals.
Counts three and channels Billie
with a sound like gravel in her throat:
summertime and the fish are jumpin'.
I ride back on that wave of lyrics to a moment
with her brother and our friends:
summertime and the livin' is easy.
We’re sunburned and short-sighted
as you are and should be in youth
before everything happens.