The Fretless Banjo

It’s like walking in the dark or chewing on a good-luck tooth: a map doesn’t always help & no vowel can be trusted. Which is why the Israelites dispensed with both. But we have lived here in Canaan so long, we’ve forgotten about ties & collars & all the other uses to which a neck can be put. Jubilee comes every day at noon, now, & the Adam’s apple never falls far before bouncing back. Goats can get by, I swear, on the notes no one else sings. It’s like the glass ball in an antique lightning rod— its highest aspiration is to break free. The night itself doesn’t need more than a few hardy katydids to throb. Who are we that we should fret over bars of brass?