It was foreign and lilting.
I smiled sadly at every song serene.
The love emotional.
Almost like poetry.
Stately inside of stately.
A crying, distant piano.
Occasionally the tempo would pick up
and it was a Latin street party.
Clearly it was nightclub music for grownups,
the eager restraint of the 1950s, every jazz flourish
dying into melody.
The French she sang tickled my curiosity—
nowhere near fluent.
I was not as sophisticated as this and I knew it.
I preferred the music almost bashfully.
Goodbye now. Sorry for bothering you.
What did they like?
Oh you know. What everyone listens to.