Banjo

And after 3 days rain

the frog songs stops

—which had wimped

& bumped loud like a distant

chained-up dog—

and the birds

begin—mockingbird,

wren. O Susanna

don’t you cry fo me—

an unthumbed string

of days, dis-

cord. A few toads lie

splat in the road & find

I am counting blessings I

never before spoke.

Down the sky comes

grows the grass up—

I plead with you

—the nerve!—to start

again your whispered

name—let

them frogs gossip on

all night—if they want—

Copyright Credit: Kevin Young, "Banjo" from jelly roll {A BLUES}. Copyright © 2003 by Kevin Young. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.