For Sonny Rollins, who quit performing publicly and only played alone on the Williamsburg bridge for a year, sometimes up to 16 hours a day.
.
It was so easy for them,
with their eyes closed,
bobbing their heads like ducklings.
I was the body beneath,
undulating some kind of tempest
that ruffled their fine clothes
The breath I pulled
like fire out of my throat
landed tickling jitterbugs
over their scalps
till they leapt up,
moved mindlessly to the sounds.
.
Lightening in the brain.
Hands burnt tree-bark,
brass melting off my fingerprints;
imagine yourself a canyon;
you,the darkest void, and
the smallness of a candle
you light night after night.
.
You will never be the sun
that could save you
from your haunted crevices,
but they will still mistake you for day.
.
It was so easy for them
to call it crazy,
the year on the bridge,
no one to hear my shame
and call it genius.
.
If you pass me some night,
pretend not to recognize me.
Keep walking as you would
past the junkie in a half-sleep
underneath,
who only knows his shape
by the shadow he casts.