Black Jazz Shoes (Critique 4)

Todd Gray, 1981

Warm summer air coats thick, metal bass strings

Cicadas tick-ticking in time with the trap set 

The Texas heat could never take away my cool

That day;

I was playing with my band. 

Small, dark room houses earnest, teenage dreams

Of thrusting your heart into someone else's 

Of moving the way you move when you set your body free

To make scuffs on the ground with my shiny, black jazz shoes

While the bass thump-thumps in my chest

Just like he did. 

A friend comes in the room to tell us something

Something that murders the vibrations 

Something that paralyzes our dancing feet

The King of Pop is dead

We search for Billie Jean tabs.