Bones Of A Popular Song

Bones
of a possibly popular song
are bleaching in my hand.
I can’t do anything
with this now.
It was alive once,
a tale of a perfect moment: 
surely it might have been
as perfect a moment
for someone else
as it was for me
but I did nothing with it
and after a while it died
though I kept it close.
I sing what it was a little
now and then,
though it’s not right.
I never thought it was right
and so I never let it go,
and now it cracks
in my impotent fist
like old crackers
no one could dream
of choking down.