My library was full.
When I went to trim the fat
I found pictures of you
and you and me
and those yellowed pages that were
torn from the middle of that book
I wanted to finish.
At first nothing,
my eyes glazed over as if
listening to a story heard since I was a kid,
a song heard a thousand times.
then all at once the air was squished
from my chest as I recalled
the familiar tickle of your fingers
pushing into my ribs
as if each bone were the ivory of a baby grand
and the untuned cacophony escaping my mouth
that grinded against your perfect pitch ear.
It’s painful how a song gets stuck in your head,
and no matter how long it’s been,
no matter how many songs you've heard in between,
you still remember every lyric.