It is not clear in my mind how i came to be here.
I am somehow aware that I do not belong,
that the smell of the river, the mud, the magnolias is foreign to me.
yet as we walk he speaks to me of last night's jook
and remember that long-haired one who tried to sit on my lap as we played
and how we didn't miss a beat when her man
jumped at us and tripped,
smashing his face into the table
and remember the blood on the floor as they dragged him out
and how she just laughed and said
play me the Terraplane Blues, Little Robert
and man, didn't we play the hell out of that one, Willie Brown

August 23, 1994
© 1994 by Rob Hutten