The books that people
can’t sell on the street,
the tin-pan alley symphony
of the piano in the square,
the bear asking for his glass eye back,
and the rock dove,
a crumb in its concrete nest,
its plea for a guide.
If I were a beggar,
I’d wish that I could steal
for you this shirt from my back,
but discord spreads without reason,
and the ghost of song,
yearning for a falsetto from the seaport walls,
must close his mind to another day.
If only praise were mine to give,
I would bathe them all.