Jiving
Heading North, straw hat
cocked on the back of his head.
tight curls gleaming
with brilliantine, he didn’t stop
until the nights of chaw
and river-bright
had retreated, somehow
into another’s life. He landed
in Akron, Ohio
1921,
on the dingy beach
of a man-made lake.
Since what he’d been through
he was always jiving, gold hoop
from the right ear jiggling
and a glass stud, bright blue
in his left. The young ladies
saying He sure plays
that tater bug
like the devil!
sighing their sighs
and dimpling.