The world does not close in your eyes; there you are born, with the weight of one lip on another.There everything fits, as in a room that grows emptier and emptier... So You are not in your eyes. You are here, hitting at presence. Irresistible. As if trapped in a statue..

The day the two old women were
dissecting their hair in the
back-room of some, some yes some? 
we came home drained wanting
only to hear some jazz, jazz
happiness was all in the pleasure of
listing held in the sway of magic

for me it was the first time
the first time
the first I ever heard a clarinet so fierce
    so smoky
    so heated
thanks to Grandfather... an era had begun
for us childhood revived
    and begun again

only that clarinet like a bridge
    bridge
and the coppery glance of Gladys
a few pounds heavier
we hung on every breath
the dust-caked needle tracking

Mozart and You laughed in the far
distance while we were desperately 
    dancing, dancing, dancing
to a kettledrum bass trumpet
flute percussion gourd
all playing together
the drumbeats leaping out of the
same fire as in
    Syria

it was the first time
the great first time
and all silence was reduced 
    to listening
to those whom screamed
   help the bomb's hit us.