Busking

The day folds up like money

if you’re lucky. Mostly

sun a cold coin

drumming into the blue

of a guitar case. Close

up & head home.

Half-hundred times I wanted

to hock these six strings

or hack, if I could, my axe

into firewood. That blaze

never lasts.

I’ve begged myself hoarse

sung streetcorner

& subway over a train’s blast

through stale air & trash.

You’ve seen me, brushed past—

my strings screech

& light up like a third rail—

Mornings, I am fed by flies,

strangers, sunrise.

Kevin Young, "Busking" from jelly roll {A BLUES}. Copyright © 2003 by Kevin Young. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.