Deep fog. She waits uneasily,
cat on her lap, for her son
to come home. Jazz radio
conjures an old friend:
saxophone, the mourning cornet.
Deep blues. Big dog
sleeps on the patterned rug,
shed fur embedded in the red
and beige fibers. Muddy floor
by the back door, dust rimming
all the picture frames.
She hasn’t quite gotten old
but that’s only one opinion
wails the soloist, bass going
up and down the band’s spine.
Strange harmonies jive—
owl and train horns, a siren
she thinks she hears. In
the music’s backstory,
themes like lost friends, missed
notes, haloes around headlights
decreasing visibility, slick road
(it is a siren—ambulance—)
jazz key augmented one step
to the bridge: relief, car door,
the clock chimes two.

---

Ann E. Michael lives in eastern Pennsylvania, where for many years she ran the writing center at DeSales University. Her book, The Red Queen Hypothesis, won the 2022 Prairie State Poetry Prize; she’s the author of Water-Rites (2012) and six chapbooks. Her next collection, Abundance/Diminishment, is forthcoming in the spring of 2024. She maintains a long-running blog at annemichael.blog.

---