damp hours dried by coexistence these

trumpet calls reverberate

through century-old buildings but

not everyone can follow the horns.

so a few of us linger

in the empty square, dry to the

onlooker but we have soul.

strung up in alleyways laundry lady

shouting, man giving man money

for an act.

the act of giving for the act of busking. we

reward ourselves for our humanity,

even those of us who can’t sing.

M. Wright is an educator and poet living with his wife, Dylan, in Minnesota. He is the 2016 winner of the Atlantis Award in poetry and his poems have appeared in The Penn Review, Saint Paul Almanac, Glass Poetry, UCity Review, Wildness, and Jet Fuel Review. Find out more at wrightm.com.

Posted in: Poetry
Tagged: 2017, Featured