When he left
his music welled up
all the way back to when he
was a little southern boy
singing Hank Williams
and Elvis next to the jukebox,
all shining face, skinniness,
and attitude.
There was a prayer service,
nondenominational, filled with
altar boys, Buddhists, and believers in
the unseen, people who astrally
projected and moved items with their minds.
It was a diverse crowd.
His lovers came,
even those he scammed,
the one whose car he borrowed
when he dated someone else.
She never got over him anyway.
Another who bought him a Martin guitar,
and the last one he married down in Austin.
They didn’t talk to each other,
they all just wept.
There were old guitar picks
and music chords, all the way from
Matchbox to Green Pastures.
There were a few old empty bottles of
vodka and prescription bottles
hidden here and there.
Last, there was an old cigar box of young
boy sweetness, pluck, and nine-lives attitude.
Laughter escaped and mingled
with strums of his mother’s old ukulele
when the box opened. That was
the sound of Goodbye.
Collage by Rebecca K. Brown
Smoky Quartz 