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.