One night I worked some hot jazz riffs
as if they could burn the guitar, playing
against my finger bones like wedding rings
for skeletons, or a wobbly drunkard’s ghost
scratching a hundred hallelujahs while
throating down a song alone like always.
Fingertips stayed sore, and calloused.
Sunrise roughed up the curtains
and I quit playing. Looked outside.
My father was a real ghost walking by.
He snuck through trees like a skint bird.
I propped the guitar against a bookcase.
Waved. He pointed at his green hat.
It was weaving itself into pine branches.
And my father began disappearing there.
I disappeared, too, into some music
and words for him. We both wore it gone.
