By Jane Barnes
For Gordon
I first hear you in a house where
my mother is dying with a plastic
tube up her nose
and love has left me
after ten years and gone to
South America and I am driving
to a gym at midnight on Route 5
under moonlight and I put in
your tape sent by a faraway friend
and the fact that love’s died and even
I will die and the moon shrink
to the size of a noose and
even you Bill Evans will die in fact
he’s already died and I will
never run long enough on the
running machine to get skinny
again so what it’s glorious
‘cause look at the moon it’s as
bright as a fried egg and look at
me alive with a little egg
on my face
Jane Barnes is a long-time New Yorker, currently living in Staten Island.
Editor’s note: Bill Evans (1929-1989) was an American jazz pianist and composer.