The Day Lady Died

It is 12:20 in New York a Fridaythree days after Bastille day, yesit is 1959 and I go get a shoeshinebecause I will get off the 4:19 in Easthamptonat 7:15 and then go straight to dinnerand I don’t know the people who will feed meI walk up the muggy street beginning to sunand have a hamburger and a malted and buyan ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poetsin Ghana are doing these daysI go on to the bankand Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)doesn’t even look up my balance for once in her life

and in the GOLDEN GRIFFIN I get a little Verlainefor Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I dothink of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore orBrendan Behan’s new play or Le Balcon or Les Nègresof Genet, but I don’t, I stick with Verlaineafter practically going to sleep with quandariness

and for Mike I just stroll into the PARK LANELiquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega andthen I go back where I came from to 6th Avenueand the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatre andcasually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a cartonof Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it

and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking ofleaning on the john  door in the 5 SPOTwhile she whispered a song along the keyboardto Mal Waldron  and everyone and I stopped breathing

“Lady Day” was the nickname of the otherwise immortal singer Billie Holiday: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billie_Holiday

John - Colloquially, (men´s) toilet.Mal Waldron - Jazz pianist and composer.