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 you

        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 that 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 trumpet

    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

 

by dreaming he was shot

    three times in the head

        near the Fuente Grande

 

on the road to Alfacar.

    But the word sex doesn’t

        flower in that heatwave

 

in 1929, only one man touching

    the other’s sleeve, & heads

        swaying to “Beele Street Blues.”