Tonight I'm watching Elvis
do gospel in yet another
of those stitched-together documentaries
they keep coming up with when
all of a sudden
during the station break I hear this wonderful vibrato
from the tv in Vicki's room and my god
is that Al Hibbler? And there's
Vicki seated crosslegged on her bed and stabbing
at the screen with her finger, so thrilled
she can't speak,
caught up in a song that goes back to when
she and Charlie were just teenagers
in the sixties, only it's not
Hibbler at all, it's Englebert Humperdinck,
who if he was blind might could be
the best Al that ever was, if he was maybe born black,
or ever had a chance to work
with Hootie McShann or Ellington
or was just a little more like Charlie more
dead and gone

� 2004 by James Lineberger