Poeming

Listening To Lady Day

And she burst into complete silence
As the needle slipped off the record
And it crackled, still turning
Her voice against my skin
And I forgot the blur of kittens by my feet
The dry rustle of the newspaper against my fingers,

That final scuffle of vinyl against needle
must have been felt when they printed the news;
The massive whir of the press as it inked the pages
And the smell of it against the paper boys hands
As he delivered the words which left her to be
Teased out of plastic grooves, black like ink.