Elegy for a Broken Machine My father was trying to fix something and I sat there just watching, like I used to, whenever something went wrong. I kept asking where he'd been, until he put down a wrench and said Listen: dying's just something that happens sometimes. Who knows where that kind of dream comes from? Why some things vanish, and some just keep going forever? Like that look on his face when he'd stare off at something I could never make out in the murky garage, his ear pressed to whatever it was that had died-- his eyes listening for something so deep inside it, I thought even the silence, if you listened, meant something. ***** Old Love You, lovely beyond all lovely, who I've loved since I first looked into your blue beyond blue eyes, are no longer anywhere on earth the girl these words call out to, though never, since, have I not been a darkening wood she walks through. ***** The Guitar It came with those scratches from all their belt buckles, palm-dark with their sweat like the stock of a gun: an arc of pickmarks cut clear through the lacquer where all the players before me once strummed--once thumbed these same latches where it sleeps in green velvet. Once sang, as I sing, the old songs. There's no end, there's no end to this world, everlasting. We crumble to dust in its arms. Excerpted from Elegy for a Broken Machine by Patrick Phillips All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
