Heat radiant from blacktop, hibiscus
burnished by streetlight, his
ghost notes
thrum the palm leaves

in the strip mall where he died,
pummeled for kicking in a club’s glass door.

My will and my want are two men clutching a semi’s exhaust pipe, 
waiting to see whose hand can burn the longest. 

A joke: the absence of what you expect.

Your problem’s easy to fix! Tell them 
the things you most long to say—but can’t. 

When the pathologist knifed through
his muscle, the carotid arteries were strung
to E, A, D, G—

Because the heart is a rhythm that allows
a melody:
wild, aching, joyous, true.

Originally published in White Wall Review 40 (2016)