Listening to Chet Baker

Always a beat too cool for whatever

school the rhythm guys are swimming in

as if each bar hangs shimmering

like an ornament, tugs at some continuum

between the lips you purse to whittle

every eighth-note silhouette and your last

quicksilver fix as you ghost out

of your battered brass soul straight past

the gilded to the hammered-thin – fugitive

gift that stuns the metronome,

then reels us in.


Ed Granger lives and was raised in Lancaster County, where he consequently learned early the proper way to pass a buggy. He works for a healthcare non-profit and is a half-time dad. His poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, Seminary Ridge Review, Loch Raven Review, The Delmarva Review, and other journals.