Doffing a cool new fedora, he comes
graciously from the shadows.
With the delicate face of
a merchant rich in melancholy,
with his famous, brazen grin,
he bows us in; and we go, willingly,
like children to kindness, into
his storm of redemption and loss,
into the smoky voice of the one-and only,
truly kosher, 'grocer of despair' –
a man with nothing to sell but song
that pulls the trigger of the heart and
moistens the cratered lips of the moon.