Falling Apart

Creates two true centers about
which circle now twin lives
like the pull of double stars,

our memories dividing, shared
mitochondria not subsetting,
an abacus pulling itself apart

as it slips through the count.
You can leave by different doors
if that helps. Even furniture

we buy in backroad second hand
stores soon splits in dry winter
heat, buckles from the rude use

of the guise of veneer left
fallow in the barn loft where
it has been allowed to loaf since

someone died a decade ago,
when her imprint slept on
in trace and scent of talcum,

pins and buttons slipping
into cracks between drawers.
And the worst thing you can do

to the neck of a guitar is play
the delta blues, stretch strings
into the cave of the palm, spider

the fret board to the bottom.
I warp the reeds of a harmonica,
late nights on the porch, tunes

silted in fifteen dollar scales,
into the slow wail, breaking out
notes into ninety others, into

sighs, gestures, signals, myth,
the death entropies of the animal,
even my heartbeat as it jazzes,

a center of muscle and blood only,
tapping a backbeat for the dance
of what can be held together.

copyright 2004 Naton Leslie
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