I met Monk
     on a subway, coming through the tunnel.
          His words fell out be-
     tween thick beard hairs,
          then lumbered toward me, paused and sighed.
    
               When the train jerked, his long
                                           fingers reached out,
          touched my pale shoulder:
                                           he wore a rust brown coat.

                                                      Intervals rode
     the track with us: E-flat, D,
          C and D. Harmonious fifths, and mismatched chords.
              
     He explained that the melodies
                                                        were dots
                      his hands wanted to connect.
                              
                                                       I didn’t understand
                      so he invited me to his home.
     We emerged from underground and
               walked. Step, step, stop
    
          over thin tones of San Juan Hill. The sun moved closer.
     Step, pause,
         
     step. He smiled
          that slow spreading smile,
                                                            shook hands with a man
                        he knew, mumbled
                                        and moved on.
                         
                                                                        Step, step.

          On West Sixty-Third, he found his door,
                             removed his hat,
                                               and knocked.

     Nellie took his hat.

                               Monk’s fingers lipped
          the white keys, unlocked black ones.
                                                                              He tapped,
          crossed and banged again,
                             rolled his ring into place.

     Evolving patterns   
                     un-
                     clenched in a dance of abrupt
                                      imagination, infinite extrusion.
                                                        Music didn’t pour out,
                        didn’t puddle.
          He wrung it
          from his palms, revived it, gathered it in again and
              
                                                played for hours –
                      “Round Midnight” and “Blue Monk,” the angles
          of lines            
                           merging
     until my head was full of squares
                                                                     and curves,
                                                      the truth of spheres.

         
     He drew silence on that piano
                                                                   in his kitchen
                                                   until the sun came up.

          I drank another cup of tea
          and left through the small door
                                                                          to the city, the gray-
                             green emerging light
          the same as any other day, but 
                    

     the corners of his melodies
                                                             kept opening and closing,
                      
                                     making infinite space
        in the chunky dankness of the swilled avenue.