Yes, I say, I know

     what you mean.

          Then we’re off.

Improvising on what

     ifs: can you imagine

          Langston & Lorca

hypnotized at a window

     in Nella Larsen’s

          apartment, pointing at

bridges & searchlights

     in a summer sky, can you

          see them? Their breath

clouds the windowpanes

     one puffed cloud

          indistinguishable from another.

They click their glasses

     of Jamaican rum. To your

          great King, says Lorca.

Prisoner in a janitor’s suit,

     adds Langston. Their laughter

          ferries them to a sidestreet

in the Alhambra,

     & at that moment

          they see old Chorrojumo.

King of the Gypsies

     clapping his hands

          & stamping his feet

along with a woman dancing

     a rhumba to a tom-tom’s

          rhythm. Is this Florence

Mills, or another face

     from the Cotton Club

          almost too handsome

to look at? To keep

     a dream of Andulusian

          cante jondo alive,

they agree to meet

     at Small’s Paradise

          the next night,

where the bells of trumpets

     breathe honeysuckle & reefer,

          where women & men make love

to the air. You can see

     them now, reclining

          into the Jazz

Age. You can hear Lorca

     saying he cured his fear

          of falling from the SS Olympic

on the road to Alfacar.

     But the word sex doesn’t

          flower in that heatwave

of 1929, only one man touching

     the other’s sleeve, & heads

          swaying to “Beale Street Blues.”