Two poems for Billy Strayhorn and Stephane Grappelli — by Larsen Bowker
Grabbing the blue basket of bottles I’d promised
to take to a recycle plant and then forgotten,
I drove too fast down a twisting mountain road,
safe in a young man’s faith that death is abstract
truth until a radio voice — speaking over Johnny Hodges’
sweet tenor on his “Take the A Train” — intones,
May 17th, 2016