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Dan Wyke

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The Guitar Shop

I would like to stay here
   looking at the guitars
      behind the glass,

soundproofed from the street-noises,
   perched like sleeping owls
      on bars along the walls,

but whose friends will wait
   for an evening windowshopper
      who can’t even play?

We leave them hanging
   in the bright shop,
      horse-bottomed, chestnut-sided,

blonde, and big as prize marrows;
   a surrealist mindscape.
      Among the pub clamour

their latent sonority vibrates
   through my dull bones
      a note held beyond silence.

All night I warm myself on
   the handmade love
      that glows the colour of corn

from their planed and polished
   bodies; the music
      that no one can hear.

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