Bolero By Gerold Stern

            Bolero  (By Gerald Stern) 
So one day when the azalea bush was firing 
away and the Japanese maple was roaring I 
came into the kitchen full of daylight and 
turned on my son’s Sony sliding over the 
lacquered floor in my stocking feet for it was 
time to rattle the canisters and see what 
sugar and barley have come to and how Bolero 
sounds after all these years and if I’m loyal 
still and when did I have a waist that thin? 
And if my style was too nostalgic and where 
were you when I was burning alive, nightingale?