KAREN STROMBERG
Swinging the Cat

You wore a beret, 
carried whiskey in your pocket.
I thought you were cool.
I loved how you leaned back in a chair 
and sang your songs to a coffeehouse crowd,
how you could bring the pulse of a cool evening 
down to the rhythm of your own heart.
Music was your god, 
and we worshipped together, 
until you flipped your life around
and disappeared 
into gray three-piece suits, 
gray freeway mornings,
and I was left alone
in the solitary cabaret 
of my own mind. 

Sometimes, I sing,
and your guitar,
buried upright in the corner,
hums along 
in its frayed black box.