May You Never

Never Expect To Know the Guitar

You’ve got the knots of metal where the strings start,
the trail over the body, like a lover’s hand, to that wooden palm
at the top. You’ve got curves and abrupt angles. Holes that invite,
with barely visible words within. A broad, slightly humped back,
like an elderly swimmer’s. White look-at-me edges.
Brown places that shine when the body is moved. Discs that beg
to be turned. A perpetual faint echo
of tones and overtones.

You get all that, and it doesn’t tell you a thing
about where that voice comes from.