Trio
by Bruce Snider

a. Driving Home from the Night Shift, Our Mother
Listens to Hank Williams' "Lost Highway"

She cracks the window,
letting the cold air

   slap her awake. Cranking
   the radio, she sings

along as she leans
into the burn of Tiger

   Balm, her shift,
   like her body, a sharpening

of drill bits, the break
room doors. Soon,

   she'll enter the house
   before anyone is awake.

This is her time
when everything is still,

   when she could be
   anything—a thief,

a mouse. Alone,
she'll wipe coffee rings

   from counters, scrub
   sinks, floors. Love,

she'd tell you, is work, and work
is what remains

   when she leans into
   a sleep she can

almost taste, when
our father like the dawn

   rises to slip
   his arm around her waist.

b. My First Boyfriend and I Slow Dance to Jeff Buckley's
Cover of Hank Williams' "Lost Highway"

This new voice is the old
voice of wanting

   what you already have.
   It marks me like

pressed hands in wet
cement, leaves me

   warm against a boy
   in a dorm room

damp with the musk
of hair gel,

   drugstore rubbers
   and knock-off Calvin Klein.

This is not romance.
This is not a story

   of easy need, though
   there's cheap beer

on the dresser,
rumpled white sheets

   on his unmade bed.
   Anything could happen—

his mother could call,
his roommate

   could walk in the door, or
   we could flinch,

dropping down as we inch
into each other, the track

   on repeat: Now, boys, don't
   start your ramblin' round . . .

c. Encore: Months Before His Overdose, Hank Williams Sings "Cold,
Cold Heart" in 1952 on The Grand Ole Opry—YouTube, 2021

Here, as if brought to
life, the echo of some

   lost world: this skinny
   lightning-voiced angel

with his white cowboy
hat askew. Like death,

   the Internet, I've read,
   is a ghostly well,

ever-expanding grave-
yard of last breaths.

   Is this, at last, what
   we're meant to become—

Hank's blazing eyes,
soulful black windows?

   He sings and sings,
   Byzantium's golden bird.

Or is this Christ's after-
life, gates ajar? Now,

   colorless, Hank strums
   his phantom guitar.

He stares. He blinks
and grins. He feels no pain.

   Strange beauty in the lie,
   this screen between

what's twice alive but
dead, what never ends.

   When he stops, I click
   back: he sings again.

from the journal GEORGIA REVIEW

https://mailchi.mp/poems/todays-poem-trio-bruce-snider?e=6ec42bce63

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