She was real;
standing, swaying in the shadows
of a cobwebbed drum set.
No longer a voice from a blown-out Civic speaker;
my company at 10:57 p.m.
on an empty highway of many lives.
She was real;
in front of a storybook backdrop,
a fluorescent skeleton dancing.
The insanity of the moment
echoing through a muffled crowd.
And I was real too;
my toes arching on damp grass,
catching glimpses of drumstick flips
and swinging guitar strings.
I was real. I remembered I was real;
screaming into the sky,
pinpointing a place in the clouds where notes of songs
could float off to a hopeless place-
a place as far away as time past.
In that place, the clouds hang low-
over a pile of blankets in a closet,
down a desolate highway at 10:57 p.m.,
around skeletons of a life before-
they whisper:
Someday soon,
someday soon.
It will be real.
You will be real
again.
Excelsior 