Scat doesn’t mean anything. It’s just something
to give a song a flavor.
to give a song a flavor.
—Jelly Roll Morton
O manic mimic, jingle trickster,
sound mirror, I salute you, fellow thief
and midnight raconteur. Tonight
it’s you and me. Teach me
the secret plosives, sung to no one
but the One who twizzle-swishes
through thigh-high oat grass,
tickling the spikelets into raspy praise.
The earnest crickets and frogs
sound only like themselves in love
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