The man who sings my favorite song
wanders the streets of this small city.
He no longer carries his guitar,
too heavy for walking past seventy
on uneven brick sidewalks
that all run uphill.

An ex-smoker,
he catches his breath
beneath the marquee
of the last one-screen movie theater,
the one that used to show
movies he liked.
It reeks of buttered popcorn.
He moves on

past the site
of the old Woolworth’s,
the one that sold his records
back when they were hits,
when they crept out of open windows
even in this mountain town,

before they clung to him,
never leaving the room
with the reel to reel tape,
never leaving home.