Charlotte's Song

Everything gone white, everything’s grey;

Now you’re here, now you’re away.

—Gavin Rossdale, “Glycerine”

The pattern I could never play

— I never had the skill—

Had vexed me every single day

All winter long; until

When February burned to March,

The power chord at last

Subdued the rhythm of my heart

And fingers hardened fast.

These calloused hands—the final pledge

Of misbegotten love

That I can make to one long dead

To me through ancient grudge;

To one whose lintel I once stained

And slandered in my hate;

To one whose memory I retain

And mourn a decade late.

For you knew, just as I, too well

The violator’s hand;

Those bones, that sickening touch; that Hell

We children understand

Who bleed to feel the kiss of life

Cold fingers raped away;

We two, who in the razor’s grief

Assuaged our ravished day.

We two, impelled beneath the noose,

Who shared one icy gaze;

We two, whom strangers’ fingers used;

We two who met, amazed,

And wed our ruined loves to strife

For just awhile, were true;

Till our last quarrel. You took your life.

These fingers play for you.