Sounds

Waiting for my love to remember me

Now that time weighs heavily on her hands.

Something given and taken,

While mine was a gift;

A gift, a sacrifice to a lost cause.

Playing songs saturated with memories,

And too well remembered incidents.

Send the lute player away

And let me hear the plangent tone

Of a lonely woman singing;

In faded silks and fine things

Blowing in a moist, early evening breeze.

Few people in the room now;

And a young man crying.

They sent me flowers on my loss,

And the roses smelled as of stale wine

And cigarettes in a dark room at dawning.

So long; so long until the night

Ends sorrow for a brief few hours.

And a young man crying.