THE GUITAR

It came with those scratches
from all their belt-buckles.

Palm-dark with their sweat,
like the stock of a gun:

an arc of pickmarks cut
clear through the lacquer,

where all the players before me
once strummed—once

thumbed these same latches
where it sleeps in green velvet.

Once sang, as I sing, the old songs.
There's no end. There's no end

to this world, everlasting.
We crumble to dust in its arms.