She finally left—years in the making is the version
you tell as we sit in your apartment and drain
a bottle of Old Overholt Rye in the shadow
of foraged objects you collected like an old couple
antiquing: Pair of midcentury brass lamps, a salvaged
Eames chair, Fender and Gibson propped up
like prodigal children, mounted deer heads
from a taxidermy enthusiast you met on tour
somewhere in Idaho, a library of unread graphic
novels and vintage photographs striking that perfect
note of curated indifference while they scream
in their tiny frames: Are we not beautiful enough?
Your reserve elegizes her: foe granted
sainthood after nearly a decade of driving you
in circles—stunned by her gall to leave, forsaken
with relics gathering unwanted freckles of time,
you recall miles through vacant clubs and faces
of surly men buried in emptied glasses as if
those were the glory days when you thought yourself
brimming with promise—and lo, she haunts
the frets of our muted reunion. You rest your head
on my lap as I stroke your thinning hair, a scene
that must mimic the Pietà. A goddamn pity
party, really. I begin to shiver as I often do in dusty
cathedrals filled with exquisite, silent things—
things so entwined, you mistake wonder
for woe. You hum a ditty as I opine to no one
but my own whiskey reflection: Where on earth
have you been all these years? Bygones.
Nothing matters anymore. Your skin buckles
from my warm thumbs as I knead the back
of your neck like unleavened bread and gaze
over the length of your sighing limbs, watching
the rift expand between the oars. Multitudes,
I do not contain, for I certainly can’t sing
the blues, so I marvel instead at how the tenor
of your skin no longer soars, strumming
my fingers on your chest like an acoustic guitar
gifted a second life—to welcome
the quiet and perhaps another muse.