Equinox—Coltrane

Crossing the club
Where my brother-in-law is playing
Jazz piano
Suddenly I feel
Desire fill the air
As if vision pulled back
Saw Inman Square
From above, the Cambridge dusk
River, bridge, sky, green fields
Starting at city’s edge.

The audience is middle-aged
Nodding to Coltrane’s “Equinox”
Autumn and spring, more liminal than when the sun
Hangs high or low.
An aquaintance, friend of a friend
Sits with her head wrapped in a scarf,
Bald from the chemo,
She smiles, and I smile back.
We share a momentary secret—death,
Although the faces lined at small round tables
Are hardly completely ignorant
Of how longing can bring you down.

Once a blue fisher flew out of the woods
Snatched a golden carp
From the ornamental pond
That was before
My sister filled it in with earth
Planted those big pink lilies.
Still, even then, one night
We saw, on the suburban lawn,
The silver fox
Playing with her cubs in the moonlight.

Miriam Sagan