Dear Mississippi John Hurt,
I wish you were my grandpa. Oh, instead of James, in a trailer park with his third wife, far away so my mom can say "good riddance," what if you were here, alive, plucking, strumming, singing, leaving out words? Your gentleness, you couldn't have caused any such darkness in my mom, a spot she would remember mid-therapy, a pain that would send all of us reeling.
Or perhaps instead of my dad's dad, Arthur, someone I never knew. I heard his voice on tape once, talking, nothing like yours. I don't actually remember how he sounds, but I remember your voice, John Hurt. You wouldn't have been manic, tearing phones off walls, scaring my aunt, terrorizing my dad the way he learned to scarify us. You would have sat in a rocking chair, you would have mentioned the bible, you would have laughed.
Oh John, your lilting, your dancing with guitar strings, I wish that flowed through my veins. Your subtle sneaking to play guitar. We don't know such subtlety in my family. Until my brothers and I snuck out of our house in the middle of the night, we danced with the night, perhaps you were with us then and we just couldn't see.
If only you would take the last of my joint as I take the last of your drink, what if you were here in the attic, what if you were my grandpa, and alive still, and mid-music? Could you be? Could I still be? What if I hadn't felt like I was discovering life on my own? What if growing up I hadn't felt swarmed by hurt, but nurtured by it? What if you had been there? What if I had learned your music earlier?
Oh but you don't give none about this what ifs. You are in my mind in a rocking chair. You laugh and there is no TV set stage, nobody looks at you awkwardly. You take my joint and I take your drink and we smile and know it's okay to go to sleep.
