8 January 2007 | Vol. 6, No. 4

Elegy

I forgive you as I have forgiven many things,

lyrics for those dolorous blues we played, those women,


America's loneliest state.

It's been yesterday…since Cheyenne left me


on cocaine and acoustics, hopped up on jazz chords

I can't finger anymore, slinking around my blue guitar


for rhythms my hands don't realize. They fail

those bones that forge sound


inside the ear where my voice drowns, this dirge

dragging it down the way a cornfield drags crows


out of the wind to keep it light.

I should rise like a bubble in water and burst if I let it go.


Or float without effort

like a hawk whose gravity is made of sky.


But when I sing, I draw in wind, drain it through the belly

into the feet, which swell like levees about to burst.


You would know it, watching me walk, how I sing to you

with my mouth shut.

About the author:

Damon McLaughlin works and plays in Tucson, Arizona, where he most enjoys spending time with his wife and newborn daughter. His poems appear online and in print, and among his various honors is a Puschcart nomination. Among his recent endeavors is (re)forming a band, though the right drummer has been hard to find.

For further reading:

See the complete list of work by Damon McLaughlin at 42opus. Browse the contents of 42opus Vol. 6, No. 4, where "Elegy" ran on January 8, 2007. List other work with these same labels: poetry, elegy.

42opus is an online magazine of the literary arts.

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