Looking for Wilson Tom

Sometimes I hear of people but never meet them, never shake their hand or talk to them. Their name comes up in conversation but their face remains unknown. And then they disappear from conversation, completely. I suppose this happens to everyone, but I find it curious. I knew of Wilson Tom, but not him, himself …

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LOOKING FOR WILSON TOM

they say he made smooth jazz                               
at the corner of Main and Robson
behind the Corner Hotel
where laundry trucks backfire
and cats eat garbage

but no one has seen Wilson Tom
since the last full moon

no one has heard the sax riff
he perfected at sixteen
window open for neighbours and gulls
third floor back where Burnt Billie
now plays country gospel late and fast

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an earlier version published in Apollo’s

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A Summer Father … Here is poetry … interweaving images culled from a wartime childhood with bittersweet memories of a “summer father”. Lynda Monahan