Settling into
a fantasy world
where I am sitting onstage
with a guitar in stage light,
in dim light;

someone famous
sits beside me and asks me
to sing with him;
I croon his lyrics
to better than polite applause,
shake his hand and go —
I limp offstage
to a chair near the front
and put my head down

and when I lift it back up again
it’s in a bedroom, it’s dark,
I can’t see him or an audience
or anything at all, really,
but his lyrics as they appeared
on an album cover, fifty
or so years ago;

they’re fading
now and I’m falling asleep again,
disappearing as I do
into darkness;

a candle being snuffed out
by hand, fingers unburnt,
still too clumsy for my guitar,
my voice unbirdlike;
though they are briefly
visible before me
soon enough
I can’t remember the words,
not one of them,
not at all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T