Many other nights

Jasper Gywn mi ha insegnato che non siamo personaggi, siamo storie. 

- Alessandro Baricco, Mr Gwyn

Will there be many other nights like
be standing here
watching you
like I could write your portrait
in my mind
while I watch you dance

Like I could listen to some truest self
speaking through your moving body
and come up
with the setting and the props
and characters and plot
that would speak about you
symbolically
like people would read it and say
yeah
that's him
absolutely

Will there be many other nights like
be standing here
trying to spot you among the crowd
of swaying and jumping bodies
trying to listen to your truest self
while I watch you dance

Variation on Paul Blackburn's Listening to Sonny Rollins at the Five Spot and Alessandro Baricco's Mr Gwyn

(Or variation the third on not-precisely-Eleven jazz poems)