Teddy Thompson Croons Leonard Cohen

     by Natalie Padilla Young

tonight will be fine, will be fine, will be fine

It’s not even a love song,

it’s the last drop of milk on dry cereal: the I that knows small

windows, bare walls, a finale of        soft

naked lady: a sighing stripped, a woman.

(Remember that first side sway, first spinning hug

with someone of possibility?  A lot of sweaty skins ago.)

Not just ooh-la-la slow stuff, also others

with beats, a call to feet, to hips,

to who must swing, must knock the head back

in time—not century time, music time—4:4, two-step, whatever.

(Try not to remember. You still feel

a grapefruit clenched in your chest.)

Maybe it’s a full room in coordinated sigh.         I know

from your eyes, and I know from your smile

An exhale in, out of

that mouth.  Maybe things will work, maybe just fine.

​

(A lot of things conjure craving,

but he’s only a man, a man too thin singing sweetly.)

At the end, there is plenty and not enough

to be          so brave and so free           In this place without

explanation, put Teddy on repeat.  Teddy repeats

Leonard and someone hums along

for a while

​

​

​