SAM

http://bit.ly/28Trzb6

You were three
and I was nearly sixteen.
You had yet to find
misery, and I had found
too much of it.
You would, shortly, catch-up.

Then, in Bed-Stuy,
I saw Sam
live. My old man
took me. Lucky,
for me, he was
a black Jew
for his time.
Sam defined
my pain; he helped
get to my bones.

I've tried
to get to
yours.

I'm still
trying.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016