Midnight; a throwback Latin-jazz quartet.
The sinuous bossa nova adds a swerve
of samba to the swing beat’s forward verve
and, with the background rattle of roulette,
the blackjack swish, the whiff of anisette,
shuts out the touchwood world, its half-lost nerve.
Each dancer draws a Lissajous-like curve,
the old thing new again till we forget.
The 2/4 rhythms of the past are broken
but come in snatches back to haunt our days.
Who’s betting on the future? Now the Girl
from Ipanema walks, it’s all unspoken:
we dance the moment, move as in a haze,
ask time no questions while we sway and whirl.