Playing For No One

My lips hum a melody

played by your French horn

warm

deep

buried underground

you insisted a casket

sealed in caked clay

to beam in your own silence

polished gold in the dark

I am

the silver mouth

piece

wistful to touch levers

valves

slides

I stay as breath winding through

my fingers parched

ripping tea leaves under the afternoon sun

harvesting for a full cup

you drink long-

as your velvet sound plays “for no one”

I’m left drying in the porcelain

cold

a faded map marked x

to find you

if only you’d let me in