Jazz Riff for Nigel Henderson

Italian Street Scene                    after                                   Nigel Henderson         Stressed Photograph 1951

 

concertina’d                                        
space against space
                                  horse w/ cart
going up
              the street’s tiled zig-zag  
paved crazily
                      swirled in Henderson’s dark dish              

                      rippling up to white-walls
of a displaced convertible –
                                                gleam-sheen  
                                    merged into brick
                low door open –

white shirt hair slicked back
as if sprouted from his own car

it’s all been pulled back squeezed up stretched                                 
so not knowing
                which way to look
                                         you’re in the photo too

                                         coffee in the air
breadrolls flowers
like the bunch she’s carrying
                                in one hand
haloed by morning sun
as she arrives walking
                             too cool to agitate
unstoppable jazz walk
                                unstressed –
testing the hem
of her retro-for-real check-print dress
                                  
the staccato tattoo
of those heels
wins out in all the other sounds –
motor starting                      
an aria of an argument
                                neighing horse –
in the old cacophony
                                    a rhythm-awakening