Painted on a window screen in an East Baltimore alleyway is Billie Holiday’s real name. You could find it, but she doesn’t want you to. Don’t.
Set up in a rowhouse across from the robbery is this music band again, two flights down from anything even remotely rocknroll. They show up somewhere every year and start blowing embers that barely spark a fire. You probably can’t feel it, but that’s on you.
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Boats cross the inner harbor, skimming this band above the crabs, who know. They know the songs, they know time, they know pleasure. They inspire from below, from the mud. You took the long way around the city, so you miss all of this.
The band struggles up Federal Hill. It sits on stoops. It eats. Cables are plugged into museums and bays and bars. Songs are released from the connections. They just keep tossing them out for a day a year, hurling them like chewed up frisbees into the blue nightmare. Catch one in your mouths, dogs. The truck is on the way.
Namaste.
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