be my music, love

curl around the room when you aren’t there

hymns rising from the bench but absent

like the night time moon pale grey

silvering the counter with shadows and neon red clock

Rog flies away this beautiful evening

out of the cracks of hospice care

months after denial ran you still sit in phantom pose

strumming the guitar most competently

songs for me that tangle your strings

I listen quite attentively for your voice

chord of F major and arpeggios rising

through the stained pipes of the ceiling to celestial heights

and you were home with me with me WITH ME

like a celebration I watch you breath oxygen cup air

and just like that you stop say “love you, kid”

so I knew it could be alright if only the count didn’t get too low

but through bleaker days you’re faint and skinny you play

harmony deep wipe tears pray abstractly

to the deity currently on duty

“thank you for this evening for I couldn’t be without him tonight”

not tonight this winter evening that feels like summer

dreaming of leaves tangled green and wet you sweating and the pavement

hot underneath us wait could it be true?

you’re lying next to me feverish in bed

damp beautiful with an emaciated frame

a bruise in the hollow of your cheek

and blink weak and murmur quite raspy your voice

“we’re forever, no?”

take him now, sail off and away because we’ve had forever

I’ve drank it in sweet and painful and glorious like strawberry ashes

kept you in my grasp fought and burned to the end

and that glowing ember that wouldn’t come there would be no celebration and no mourning

just grey fuzzy sheets, almost-moonlight gently touching our skin connected

me, cold and quite exhausted with the radiator breaking

and pill bottles lonesome plastic by the side

mythology crawls in by the door and an Angel of Death

savouring your cool fingertips for the last time and your heart

organ tired but faithful trying so hard like an old horse bound for the glue factory

I breathe in your face

words don’t get spoken; unnecessary and not magical

we delight in we for the last few minutes that we could and then

and then

Then Forever

Rog, oh how you drift away quickly

I almost miss it but don’t