I am the brick and the lime.
Holding the weight of the time.
He leans on my cracked concrete skin.
Where the damp city air seeps in.
His tackle is orange and old.
Biting the wind and the cold.
He waits for a lake that is gone.
From the dusk till the break of the dawn.
He is the root in the rust.
Turning his silver to dust.
Below where the saxophone plays.
Lost in a low winter haze.
The *Monarda* grows in the crack.
While the bass keeps a steady beat track.
He smells like the river and brine.
Tangled in a dead ivy vine.
He is the root in the rust.
Turning his silver to dust.
Below where the saxophone plays.
Lost in a low winter haze.
Oxidation eats the steel.
Turning the heavy iron wheel.
The basement air is thick and sweet.
Rhythm pulsing under his feet.
He talks to the fish in the air.
With a vacant and hollowed out stare.
His fingers are stained like the peat.
Walking the ghosts of a dead street.
I hold him steady and still.
Bending the iron to my will.
A fossil of salt and of stone.
Watching the man stand alone.
He is the root in the rust.
Turning his silver to dust.
Below where the saxophone plays.
Lost in a low winter haze.
Just a slow, steady bloom.
In a concrete room. Iron Root Jazz.
Iron Root Jazz.
