When I was 15, I remember buying singles like
The Lion Sleeps Tonight,  Louie, Louie,  Wild Thing,
I Got You Under My Skin…
I remember buying 45 RMP plastic speed adapters for pennies-
pressing them into the center of the records
hearing them click in place.

They were a part of my youth,
little plastic things that popped out of the pockets of my jeans
whenever my mom did the wash,

invaluable, necessary, plastic discs that appeared everywhere -
inside my jewelry box, on top of my dresser,
even in bottom of my black & white, catholic saddle-shoes…

incredible, magically, musically endowed, little middle plastic things,
like guitar-picks,

strumming radiant sounds in a back-yard universe
across the beams of a basement winter's homily
inside the space-lined ears of a bleached blond teenager

whose heart & soul
were permanently scorched.