the blue cello ghost #2

bent over the sink, scrubbing nothing away,

I take the bow in my hand—rough as my own palm

after too many nights gripping the sheets—

and stroke it down the blue cello's throat,

that curve like the underside of my breast

when I was twenty, full and reckless, spilling

over the edge of a low-cut dress in the glade.

Seize it, girl—your skin still taut as the strings

vibrating under my fingers, the way your thighs

clench in the damp moss, sunlight slicing

through the leaves to lick the sweat from your collarbone.

Your body is the forest's wet mouth,

orchids blooming obscene in the humid shade,

petals parting for the bee's thrust,

that elegant plunge of desire, all honey and sting.

Play it loud now, let the resonance flood

your pelvis, your lips parting like the river's mouth

after rain, urgent and alive before the dry ache sets in.

Because soon the woods will thicken with your slowing blood,

the boughs sagging like breasts after nursing,

heavy with what they once gave freely.

Illness will come slinking through the ferns,

a hand pressing the small of your back,

turning every breath to a rasp, the cello's hum

choked off in your chest like a cough that won't quit.

Old age will finger the lines on your face,

those maps of where the lovers' tongues wandered,

now faded as the wildflowers crushed underfoot,

bruised and forgotten in the underbrush.

And death? It'll lean in close, absorb

the final quiver from your strings,

that plum-colored echo of your youth's wild song

dissolving into the blue, cold air—

just another body in the clearing, spent.

But god, right now, in this fever of green and flesh,

bow it harder, let the notes tear through you,

mend nothing, just play until you're raw,

until the day's stolen whole from the coming dark.