Jazz (1947)

Matisse in age in his sick bed found a way
for soul to seize upon scissors and cut
the shapes and shades of what still moved in him,
syncopated rhythms of all his jazz

old, cornered, ill, ornery, yet also
somehow a child, free in newfound pleasure
which called on all he knew and also
all he’d left half forgotten on the way

smiles flitted across his fa…