Nina Simone died yesterday. The café girl
told me when I asked, ‘That’s nice . Who’s on piano?’
‘Nina Simone,’ she said. ‘She died today.’
I stopped and stood, confused. ‘That’s what happened
to me when I heard,’ the girl said. I smiled, ‘But she,
she’s been around ...’ I tumbled over words
to teenage nights, girl on my lap, lights
low, Nina on the stereo. My sweet
affair lasted months – Nina and I,
forty plus years. Dead at seventy in her home
in France. Now jazz jockeys play ‘Nina at Newport’.
A record company has a tribute ready. It’s a long time
since that girl was in my lap. We had lunch
last Thursday. I didn’t hear what was playing.