He keeps a flute in his boot.
Plays it for strangers, listens for little crashes of loot.
Sleeps on a stone bench near the ocean.
Sometimes gets drunk, hollers, causes commotion.
On good days he flaps about
in his loose oversized castoff suit
looking as if he might fly
or cry when the sun shines blindness
across his two bum eyes.
Passersby know not
he once brought the house down
with Ellington in a jazzy joint in Harlem town.