by gRj
They say you’re dying—
but the morning doesn’t know it,
still spilling gold through your window,
still begging for your rusty guitar.
You count your breaths like old guitar strings,
yet somehow—
there’s always one left
to hum the chorus of Wild Horses,
one more to pluck the notes
that slip like loose change
through your fingers,
but never quite vanish.
And if death is a door,
it’s stuck halfway open,
and you’re neither coming nor going—
just leaning on the jamb,
tuning that old six-string
to a key only the wind understands.
Men who are done with living
don’t name the birds at their feeders.
They don’t laugh when the rain
soaks through their boots,
or grin at the nurse
who calls them honey
and means it.
You measure time in coffee stains,
in snapped strings and calloused thumbs,
in the way your voice,
roughened to gravel,
still finds the high notes—
a hand groping for the light switch
in a familiar dark.
Dedicated to George in Austin