Chrome

LONG MAY YOU RUN

It is so common, the mind singing to itself,

its weirdly silent voice you imagine

to be your own or the singer’s, looping

again and again upon the indelible,

the inescapable. It’s here you’ve come

to buy water or something dark and sweet

and alive, and above you, like odd

weather, piped music plays. Old and sad,

maybe, a song by Neil Young,

the one you never knew was about a first car,

a wreck of a hearse, impossible

to be anything but romance.

You can’t decide, you can’t decide,

if you’re happy now

that you do know what he’s singing about.

If love for the lifeless is enough

now to sing along, to shape your breath

into each word. Chilled air

spills around you like a fog

and you remember that it’s here you came

with her, after forgettable Chinese

and the false phonemes you sang to please her,

it’s here you came to buy condoms

you’d never use. In white

she would return to the rented bed

and what you loved

now you say you cannot quite remember,

though the song never ends.