A past that’s sprinkled with the blues
A few old dreams that I can’t use
Who’ll buy my memories of things that used to be?

—Laminated into the table in Willie‘s Corner at Texas Roadhouse in Elk Grove, CA
From Willie Nelson’s song, “Who’ll buy my memories?” 1984 on “The IRS Tapes”

•••

No one wants your old stuff,
we hear again and again as we
go through our old stuff,

the stuff getting older every day,
as are we. But some memories,
depending on what they are,

or whose they belong to, they
might be worth something.
Willie’s memories must be gold

shrouded in a fragrance of good
weed, and given what he’s done
and who he is, plenty of folks’d

be pleased to buy his memories.
Which, of course, they already do,
in every song, every twang on that

beaten-up old guitar, every word
from those creased lips that you just
know have kissed more than a few

others in their time. I played Willie
nonstop for Julie in her final weeks,
shrunk to a little cocoon of ribs,

no longer singing, mostly gone, her
determined 80-something heart still
keeping time to the raspy baritone.

I held her limp hand, wishing she could
lay into “On the Road” one more time,
or better yet, “Always on My Mind,”

which she still is—one of the many
diamonds in my overfull storehouse
of memories that nobody will want,

every one a gem
that I’ll never trade or sell.