Maestro, ponder on: a home needs

a hiding place and how many

moments remain is uncertain

but there is still forever

                                    a project

on the go even as the clock ticks down. You

are here with the instrument

following fair warning that this will be our last

time as no news remains naturally

no news: just smoke

from our cigarettes that rises

in wordless gestures to give up, disperse –

and I have given everything

else away, disencumbered being before it staled

as old beer stales and retreated

to my corner, unserious yet undergoing

serious times, and still trying

for renewal though the future

diarises blank. I needed a witness to notice

then disappear –

just as I will soon disappear

into the enigmatic fretboard’s polished rosewood,

blend with maple body and walnut neck, become

each string – and live

in vibration,

relation, assimilation to the room’s dimensions.

A performative going with the flow,

                                                         uh huh,

that will soon resonate instead as a small stack

of minor thirds – diminished, stuck

and awaiting relaxation, an easing

of state, a change

                                    of chord. No requirement

for farewell words, never an embrace,

but privacy would be welcomed

for the last unmetered bars so notes

may be gathered

                          and declared resolved.