"Lyra" by Jory M. Mickelson

When all things are given to the water, the limbs the hands and feet, every part, the spine will extend itself into the current. The vertebrae becomes notes on a scale. This is what dissolution means. All that remains are the water-swollen loaf of my head and perhaps, my lyre. We all descend into these spaces. The bend of the oxbow, a crescendo, the turbulence of water over stone -- a moment, a melody to what passes away. So intact, the object of my fame was lifted into the night to play each passing comet as a plectrum. The vibrating strings, static against the well-worn grooves of the planets in their orbits. Each sphere in tune, every ring and moon know the round.Now to fall again beneath these lights, to touch my instrument tonight with smoking fingers that find themselves in a sack of skin. How should I begin? I run the string under the bow searching for the songs I used to know and with one bright saw of tightened thread, I renew the notes. "Tell Laura I love her... tell Laura I may be late..." followed by a candle in the wind. The fiddle case yawns open and begins to fill its felt lined sails with coins, tokens for Charon. In ones and twos, the crowd gathers beneath the street lamp, on the corner of Christopher and Hudson. They press me in and I am pressed to play another song, their eyes closing with so many shades of remembrance.I follow with Waltzing Matilda for good measure. They come to me this night, as they did before, St. Luke-in-the-Fields, the Elysian Fields, and the one that hid the asp. The last note catches against the air, rests on the tongues of half-opened mouths, and is gone. With me. I have other places to play before dawn.

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