John Hoppenthaler
Busking
I was playing love songs on a stolen guitar
when the G string snapped, the few limp
dollars crumpled with change on the black fuzz
lining the case. Spring,
Central Park already greening its perennial heart.
I'd be scratching out blues
if there was money in it, but city girls
on the west side want to be honey-
tongued, Motowned, Ah-Angied, Oh Mandyed—
so that's what they get; they get what they want.
Then a cop car wheels by, slowly,
& who could explain the rosewood guitar, the dangling wire?
East side girls want to be Oh Girled, Brown Eyed Girled,
Beach Boyed till dawn,
& summer sun bleaches my hair so blonde
even the suburbs seem possible.
There are girls who'll linger in Nyack, flirt
through Ossining, & I can act, & I can sing.