There's a man outside my window playing trumpet in the night. Sad, slow notes. He's sitting on the base of a streetlight on the boardwalk. His shoes are tattered, his pants baggy. The sleeves of his zipper hoodie are cut off; he's got musician arms.
People stop to say hello. Friends. A black man with a baby in a stroller. A guy in a hat with a small dog. They all talk like they know each other, and the trumpet man stops playing for a moment. A high-five for the baby. She's wide-eyed in the fluorescent light. It must be the music. And the darkness pressing in from all sides.
I wonder what this baby thinks of him, looking up from her stroller; this trumpet man.
