the man who wrote jazz
lost his name
hung up in some smoky den
and taken by someone else
while the saxophonist played.
he kept an eye out in town
for who had taken his name
but resigned to not having one
at least for a while.
the man who wrote jazz
sometimes wondered
who now had his name
and what they now did with it.
he should have put his name in it,
he realised,
so he would know it was his.
that’s what other people did.
he would not be so careless,
he decided,
with his second.