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Bluesman howls at the paper moon, slinks down stinking back alleys with his beat up electric and air force duffel he tells folks was his fighter pilot Grandaddy’s, real hero shit, man, so what if he got it at the Army Surplus, if Grandaddy never saw action, he was still an angry son-of-a who drank himself to death. Bluesman splashes his busking cash on diner breakfasts, over-easy eggs and bottomless coffees, ‘cause he ain’t dying hungry, and Bluesman’s got no home since his parents died and his bitch of a sister ran off, and yeah, maybe he’s a bit messed up, you know, in the head, but some days are clear glassy ocean, man, until the memories start sifting like sugar powder sand, and those are the nights he wakes up screaming. Bluesman likes riding the rails, buses, subway lines, anything that keeps him moving, ‘cause when you stop, when you get cold, that’s when shit gets dangerous, man, so just keep rockin-rollin-ridin’ till you can find a beautiful woman to take you home, but Bluesman don’t mind, so what if he sleeps some nights under the bridge, he’s a Bluesman, this life chose him. Bluesman ain’t scared of nothing, except maybe starving, or never seeing home again, the lake an unbroken mirror, pine trees piercing pitch night sky, and the stars, I swear man, more stars than anywhere on earth, where he’d sit out on the deck with his kid sister just looking up, and the howling wasn’t so loud back then, he could pretend everything was fine, just fine Sis, man, do those marigolds ever smell like Ma, and maybe someday they’ll do it again, if she’d just say he was right, that none of it’s his fault, maybe then he could forgive her. Maybe he already has.