Because to me you are warm jazz.
Ella Fitzgerald.
The kind that my grandfather used to play
In the too-early hours of the morning,
So much sound filling every corner of the house.
The early fog was still settling over the hills,
Rolling down into the river below
To the throaty hum of the saxophone.
The dew climbing in the trill of piano key arpeggios.
He made coffee and
Fed the birds while
My grandmother
Cooked.
Always eggs and bacon.
The grease crackling over the stovetop
Mimicked that of the vinyl,
The needle slipping over
Grooves from years
Of the same love-soaked routine.
You feel like the lipstick she wore
Before she got sick. Sunday afternoons
After church when I still believed in god
And falling asleep to Novels
And Ceiling fans.
Like summer nights and fireflies before
I grew out of the season
Between school
Beginning and ending.
Like banana sunscreen on the beach
Floating in the salty sweet breeze
Crashing into the water.
California sunsets,
The coziest of coffee shops.
A blue sky daze under
Creme champagne clouds.
Sweet summer love,
Enough to keep me growing in the stifling heat
Easy to love and
The hardest to leave.
Sleeping to the lullabies of your heartbeat and the thunder
Rolling through the trees and beneath the floor.
Steady rain.
A bedside window looking out at the street,
Trimmed in woven white lace
Slow mornings and black coffee.
A stillness that is unparalleled and
Backlit by the sun.
And the ocean.
Always the ocean.
