far away, my well-lit door

i spent the majority of my second-last afternoon at work drawing
portraits of paul simon and art garfunkel on our manila delivery tags.
they're not bad, though garfunkel
suffers from minor water damage and simon
is particularly jowly and both
of their faces are slightly elongated
but considering they were both done from memory
during my brain-dead hours of the day

i've had this obsession with them lately
they harken my mother at forty
and her blonde nylon string guitar
plucking out her rocky rendition of i am a rock

and they harken you
your crooked fingers
your wavering alto and
the first verse of you can call me al

this is regression, i suppose
these are things i can't have
because my mother sold her guitar years ago
in the bargain finder and you
are so far away
but this is what i want

i want to hear you singing
a man walks down the street
he says why am i soft in the middle now
why am i soft in the middle, the rest of my life is so hard
i know all the words now