I remember night falling in the field as I played. I knew at some point I had to go back inside. Cars passed by and ignored me. Sometimes I heard their radios as they went by, like I was some kind of telepath picking up the random thoughts of strangers, and finding neither peace nor answers in any of them. I could not name the disease. I only knew I felt it in the air, some terrible thing in the future waiting to fall on my head. So I packed up the cheap guitar and walked back home, and put on Brahms who made all the commentary on the evening that it needed. I didn’t reappear in the real world until she asked, “What were you doing outside?” and I said, “Looking for something.”

I’m still a young man
but my hands are getting old.
They are yellow paper
where they once were gold.

They don’t want to do
what I tell them to.
Try as I may
they won’t touch you.

Who knows what desires
burn in our hearts.
They are raging fires
in our secret parts.