Last song

​

I remember the last

song he sang—a squeak, as

a rusted metal grinding,

bursting my earlobes—

more horrifying than the heavy

thud the unmerciful collision

mangled his car;

 

his throat gargling the grisly

blood effected by the 

stray shard that sliced it. 

 

Still, I can remember

how he used

to sing in soul-

ful joy, like the sweet nightingale,

to the audience of our

wanting ears

 

or how he used to sway

his voice in intense crescendo

when the choir crammed

the church to praise

the god that has now forsaken

him

 

or in the echoed beauty

of his bathroom's closed doors

spilling and sieving

his high pitch

from the small spaces

 

But he does not sing anymore.

 

He does not sing to the souls 

of living hearers. He has

sung his own soul away with that

last song.