Truepenny

A poem by David Yezzi

Green light drapes the window
as if air were ivy climbing up the bricks
and in over the sun-warmed windowsill.
The morning is what it is. Still,

you may be surprised. 
Surprising things happen
a thousand times a day, walking to work.
Life could change. It’s the perk

of living with so much aggression
and trash and so much trade in misery
that no one regards or not for very long.
It’s a Tin Pan Alley song

that starts out wistful, but then
you’re dancing down the street in the rain,
insanely joyful, without the least surprise,
when, suddenly, you realize

there’s music pooling in the drains.
I am an echo of the song I was,
my voice still going on inside,
a ghost crooning to one who’s died.

DAVID YEZZI is the editor of The Hopkins Review. His latest collection of poems is Birds of the Air (2013), and his  poems and essays have appeared in The Atlantic, The Paris Review, The New Yorker, and The New Republic.

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