Meanwhile, Melody Muses…

Your world covers your lines

in high-powered ad campaigns

that promise forever young

in a bottle,

the fountain of youth at a cost;

but swallowing emptiness

cannot fill canyons.

In your lines,

I trace the conquest of first love,

baby bottles and funeral baking,

losses and gains

multiplied by loaves and fishes.

No serum

can replace the living

drawn in these lines –

this is no paint-by-number

out of a box,

but an original,

a hand-drawn facsimile

of you. So hang out your laundry,

put it all

on the

lines.