A man walks onto a stage
because several people
purchased tickets
to watch him pretend
he knows what he is doing.

This is called
a career.

There is a light
pointed at his face.

There are people
sitting in darkness.

This arrangement
seems backwards.

He sings a song
about something terrible
that happened thirty years ago.

The audience applauds.

The terrible thing
does not improve.

He sings another.

Someone coughs
during the quietest part.

This is democracy.

For forty years
he carried instruments
through airports,
hotel lobbies,
snowstorms,
relationships,
recessions.

Backstage
there is usually a mirror.

He has watched
the person inside it
grow old.

The audience has too.

His hands are slower now.

His stories are better.

This is the bargain.

His name is announced.

He walks into the light.

And for ninety minutes
a roomful of strangers
agrees to listen
while another stranger
makes vibrations in the air.

Then everybody puts on their coats.

The chairs are stacked.

Someone sweeps the floor.

Nothing has been solved.

Nobody has been rescued.

But for a little while
a roomful of people
were lonely
at exactly the same time.

Which is not nothing.