Crazy Rhythm

“Destiny” 

Django Reinhardt played hot guitar sissoring

Two surviving fingers against the neck perhaps a

Roma homage to the uncanny arithmetic of fire accident

Of subtraction yielding extravagant sums of jazz.

But you’re no Django Reinhardt and I’m no Stéphane Grappelli

Gigging between wars with the Quintette du Hot Club de France

Who never passed through Roseville on a swing through the Rustbelt

But can we agree that “Crazy Rhythm” or “Tiger Rag”

Match the tempo of events the night I severed the tip

Of your finger in the bedroom door blood if not hot

Gypsy blood oozing through Kleenex lights blazing

In every room mom keening all the way to St. John’s 

Dad doing what he did best white knuckling the wheel

Church to Kelly counting backward from 10 Mile to twilight

By the time they turned east on Moross retracing his route to retrieve

Your squib from down low on the jamb lights left blazing

Open throated Chrysler carb inhaling gulps of east side night

Fingering the twist of Kleenex in the pocket of a Pendleton shirt

Wool plaid they last forever who would blame him for wool

Gathering waiting for the light at 8 Mile running toward the emergency

Entrance the way big men run belly out elbows in chin down

But by then you were sedated and asleep nursing an abbreviated

Finger perhaps wincing a little even now on certain chords destined

For guitar if you buy another door opens when one slams shut.