Tonight's Poet Corner: Old Folk Song

Old Folk Song
by Belinda Roddie

You played me an old folk song
on an eleven-string guitar, because
one of the strings had sailed away on
a cloud as dense as a bayou. You fed me

crushed pretzels from a paper bag,
and you showed me how to play one tune,
just one, using only three basic chords,
but still providing a melody we could sing,
and the birds could rest and listen.

As the days got drier, and the rain didn't fall
as hard or as hyperactively on the plateau,
you let me drink longer from the fountain
than you did, just so the headaches that
I was used to getting night after night
went away a little faster. You brought your guitar

over again one afternoon, and you gave it
to me for keeps, and that was when I
knew, but I wouldn't say a thing. Sometimes,
when the shovel is propped against
the back of the shed, and the monolith
of mourning marble has been erected,
there is still

an old folk song that you played for me on
your eleven-string guitar, and I have learned that
song, and I've added extra harmony to the notes
just to draw out the sound of you.