The Night Guitar
Sometimes the stars mock the moon,
smaller than a paramecium
swimming in their amniotic cloud,
invisible without
a microscope. Sometimes the night's
guitar is bigger than I am, miles of
twisted mahogany too heavy
to hold.
I stand beside it,
its ebony frets that reach past
the roofbeam, strings
like bridge
cables, its round-windowed keys
bright raptor eyes
looking through me. I stand there
looking through me. I stand there
as I would by a trophy fish
hoist swinging up by a pulley
because some nights
because some nights
are like a bad vacation
full of lousy motels, broken food,
bitching spouses. They take a picture
so all may admire
the length, the torpid weight of
something huge
and liquid silver made dead
and liquid silver made dead
to hang on a failing wall.
Other nights
the stars are drowned in moonglow,
the neck is a rosary fitting my hands,
strings bending sweetly against my fingers,
like the wooly necks of wayward lambs,
and we play until dawn blows out
the candled moon.
~June 2015
[from a dream]
for real toads Open Platform
Images: The Guitar, 1895 by Anders Zorn
The Trout, 1897, by Gustav Courbet
Public domain