Cello Boy on a Tuesday Night

and because of a phone call from an old friend, i'm posting this poem in which he is featured (he's marc, not cello boy) :)

Cello Boy on a Tuesday Night

We walked down to Church Street one night
to see if we could find cello boy.
Marc says he’s always out on Saturday
nights. I saw them-

only once before, on a Tuesday. Cello boy
and his father. The boy dressed in a starched
white shirt, shined shoes; leaning over
his cello, face much too serious

for someone so young. It is a reflection
of his father, the man who hovers behind
his son, watching the Rubbermaid box
in front of his child fill with change.

That night, a crowd formed
around the two of them, father and son. Tonight,
there is no cello boy, perhaps his father
has relented, and cello boy has lost

his serious expression for an evening, no music
filling the street with the melancholy song
of a boy who learned the notes
too early to play them.