“The Funeral of The Man Who Played For The Sake of The Song”

How can you be gone?

When I was not finished listening

to your stories?

I only wanted to

hear you play more.

Hear now…sweet thread of ecstatic pain — that is my unmooring —

I am adrift.

Your mourners seek me out, as if I owe them soothing for their loss. Do they not know I am your daughter, and not their clergy?

Leave me alone in my sorrow, so that I may build my levy back up.

I see a photograph of you, in your youth, handsome and familiar holding your guitar.

I see your urn.

I hold my breath, just to imagine what your suffocating might have felt like.

I feel rage wash over me in great waves,

tearing at my rocky, jagged edges

Until the tide runs out

And all that is left

Is smooth stone of my darkened shores.