His face, a soft cannon blows off my hesitant hands waving to the television.
He looks like a young man I used to know. Someone else's friend, a community college and a pine tree.
He makes me nervous, excited like driving down Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park, endless calm bafflement among mountains, trees to never claim.
I imagine the smell of his long hair, Old Spice and slight grease, a dot of tightened leather, like he needs a shower but won’t find the time.
He sings Old Man, I think of my father. I hear a warning backwards. I see a place in brown and mustard yellow. I feel the back of a van, unmoving but tilted so that I roll into the others, sleeping, waiting.
The countless guitars his hands take control of like wheels or buckets of gravel to spread.
The man strums from his mind, vibrating creature that knows life begins in the chest and ends in the head.
Sarah Lilius is the author of five chapbooks including GIRL (dancing girl press, 2017) and Traffic Girl (Ghost City Press, 2020). Some of her publication credits include Fourteen Hills, Boulevard, and forthcoming in the Massachusetts Review. She lives in Arlington, VA with her husband and two sons. Her website is sarahlilius.com.