Sneak It In (Keep)

I had published a Cento here - but took it down when a spider crawling for one of the poets checked the blog. I wondered how I would like it if someone used one of my lines in a Cento poem that completely changed its meaning. Answer: I would not like it much. So instead, here's a poem of mine, Sneak It In, published in The Green Tricycle, an online journal which has now gone dark.

Sneak It In
        for Jeff

If you play jazz you
can take a breezy name like
Urbie or Ella and title pieces
with talk of percussion's
spaced beats and woodwind's

shady nature, then usher in
the do-wrong do-wrong
of a cheating lover. You can
address with offhand ease
the don't cry spills

of life on the street.
Big things that come straight
in the slur and faint of a sax -
coaxed to life from nonchalance.
Ice it all off with a vamp's

slow voice conjuring

implicit innuendos

from isotopes to Isadora.

Patricia L. Johnson