Sir Duke

(i.m. Stevie Boucher)

I.

The first time I met you, you welcomed me
like a hearth without guard or grate.
You handed me a plate – but first, whiskey glass.
We spoke of Chelski, Butch; before
talk turned to your daughter – your one, only.
How I’d suffer worse fate, if I hurt her.

Three-quarters cut on Take Courage, Rhine Wine
you invited me up, amongst Sunday league cups,
pith-rind, gift wrap and ash trays. A duet.

Clear the floor for Sir Duke, said kith and kin;
as piano sparked up, as hi-hat and drums swung.
As doo-wop chords climbed and dropped
we swayed in an enfilade of big band horns
and I could feel it, to be fair – all over.
My soul fought gravity and the soul won.

II.

But who knew that the blues scales were coming?
Who knew that limp and dip was not of dude
or wrecked hip; but Stage Four. Who knew?

Show don’t tell, the saying goes. So you did
and you didn’t. Until that last time I found you –
our rawboned palomino, planed to a splinter.
Draped in smock, mouth agape as a snare.
You were shuttering up, but still restless
with greasy lustre, still warm from the fight.

When I complimented your thighs:
Just like Butch, I said. How did you reply?
That wry smile? Like a true Sir Duke.

III.

Since your committal, our dismissal
Sir Duke has retired; but sometimes
from wireless upon my workbench
I hear you. Changing doleful dial
until piano sparks up, hi-hat and drums swing;
to which, my soul fights gravity once more.

A gravity now imbued with your absence.

The soul wins out, of course –

but only just, Sir Duke.

_{^{This poem first appeared in Clevedon Litfest’s MotorCitySixty Competition Anthology 2025 as a shortlisted poem}}