I still have her guitar
The one the church gave her

I started to practice; to learn it’s tune

but when I strummed its brittle strings, her sad voice was all I heard


Her blue-green wrinkled eyes bored through me

Her soft song rang in my ears



I said I needed space, I needed distance from her past


but every time I picked up that old guitar

her silver-grey presence reappeared


What used to be fond memories,
playing in my mind as I held its wooden body close,


transformed into drunken hazes- to a sea of black disguised as blue

……………………………………………………

How can I still practice, still play this guitar
when every time I look at it

I just think of her

Breathe and sing


Words flow out of cherry black lips

like music notes leaping off a conductor’s page


Fingers straddle black and white keys

painting meadows of memory

A raspy voice whispers familiar lyrics to an unfamiliar tune


Smoky rooms smell of sweat and tobacco

Slinky dresses hide shadows of her past

a soulful song echos off of flowered wallpaper, curling at the edges


Her tune, so beautiful, only the few

gathered in the smoky sweat-thick twilight,

hear the secrets woven into its melody


Only a few in her audience

held in a musical trance -

Engulfed in her song; are surrounded by the secrets, the oceans of her past


They stand and sweat as they breathe her breaths

As they brave her battles -

As they hear her solemn moon-lit song


As they stand and sweat all night long

I am an imperfect shape; abstract

A piece of gum sticks to scuffed tennis shoes

Sidewalk cities all turn blue

Kitchen lights flicker deadly hues


But for the few that fear the dark

They stole a life, not faint of heart

A candle burns out, a dying art


Now all is glass with shattered bone

Growing cities turn to stone

Freedom from all that is known


So take a moment, two, or three

To look down, stare at your feet

Remind yourself of their defeat


Lest you face a similar fate,

Of growing old and growing hate

Release your fears and create