"Jazz" [by Angela Ball]

Jazz

I’d like to know everything
A jazz artist knows, starting with the song,
“Goodbye Pork Pie Hat.”

Like to make some songs myself:
“Goodbye Rickshaw,”
“Goodbye Lemon Drop,”
“Goodbye Rendezvous.”

Or maybe even blues:

If you fall in love with me, I’ll make you pancakes
All morning.  If you fall in love with me
I’ll make you pancakes all night.
If you don’t like pancakes
We’ll go to the creperie.  If you don’t like pancakes
We’ll go to the creperie.
If you don’t like to eat, handsome boy,
Don’t you hang around with me.

On second thought, I’d rather find
The fanciest music and hear all of it.

I’d rather love somebody
And say his name to myself every day
Until I fall apart.

-- Angela Ball

From Night Clerk at the Hotel of Both Worlds by Angela Ball (University of Pitttsburgh Press).
And from The Best American Poetry 2001 (edited by Robert Hass)