John Davis Jr.
Violin Boy
I drop euros in your case daily:
the ones I won't give to the footless beggar
who colors his fresh sterile gauze with red marker.
You are tall and young enough to remind me
of my own son, and your song is more fiddle
than concerto. It summons some home
in this Lisbon I visit. You nod and smile,
play toward my wife - your chin never leaving
its black rest while your brown eyes say Obrigado.
The ankle-nubbed man shakes his cup: No music.
Bio
John Davis Jr. is the author of Hard Inheritance (Five Oaks Press, 2016), Middle Class American Proverb (Negative Capability Press, 2014), and two other collections of poetry. His poems have appeared in venues such as Nashville Review, Barren magazine, One, The Common, and The American Journal of Poetry, among many others. He holds an MFA from University of Tampa.