The Music Stops

The jaws sing

As the drip, drip, drip,

Of the petroleum chorus

Dances across

The inverted aluminum

And the hissing starts

And the hissing stays

Its smell a warning

A final omen

Like the last rose

Of summer

Or the fragrance she wore

For that final goodbye

The teeth tear inward

Like the regret for today

And the regret for yesterday

And the lament for tomorrow

Its promise broken

And your khakis red

And baptized

A stigmata

To self infliction

As the music plays constant

And the rushing you feel

An emptying of sorrow

Onto the crushed ceiling

Of a dream in reverse

Of all life in reverse

Until two arms grab you

And you fall from the sky

And you fall from the sky

Waiting

For the ground

To coronate the outcome

And for one more answer

To a ‘why’ unquestioned

And to love you one more time

But the lights are now dim

And the voices muffled

As an organ can be heard

And store bought flowers smelled

And an old woman cries…

As a young woman cries…

And a stranger pronounces

What you feared the most

They didn’t know you

And couldn’t know you

The exit sign flashing

But there is no door

“There Is No Door”

  —and then the music stops

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)