In Hospital

The sun was going down and in low spirits

I turned on the hospital radio and heard

‘Nobody Knows the Way I Feel this Morning’

By Sidney Bechet’s New Orleans Feetwarmers.

The band stepped out in melancholy mode:

The blues. First the trombone, next the trumpet –

Muted, whining, over the steady tread.

Then not the clarinet, the soprano sax,

And Bechet – you could hear the brassy gleam –

Rode in on his fierce mount, its nostrils flared,

With gilded trophies slung across its neck,

To triumph over all adversity.