New Poem.  

The usual questions echoing
in the empty night, but tonight
something’s answering

in the shape of a 
fat chord and an imagined
horn chart, answering

with the compassion of 
a tender mandolin strummed
as lullaby

on a sultry Southern porch
over the ghost
of the failed child 

you cannot forget, answering
blue, answering street joy
Saturday night, answering

in your own amazed voice,
the music you just made
beginning to fade

but not without
leaving the knowledge
that if it can be done once

it can be done again
nestled inside you
like an egg, a mystery, a blessing.