Stacked green crates by the futon,
records quiet as buried letters,
each sleeve longing
to be drawn out into daylight
by her small, thoughtful hands.
I just want to play that Nick Cave again
teenager’s resolve in her voice,
she drops the needle on "Tupelo",
traces Peter Murphy with her thumb,
holds Kate Bush to the light
like stained glass.
She laughs
at the ****** box on the speaker.
I tell her it’s never going to happen.
She grins, unbothered,
says she only came for the vinyl.
I watch her tilt each sleeve,
never touching the grooves,
brush the dust,
lay the needle like a secret,
slide the disc back without a wrinkle.
Each time I’m surprised
by her precision.
It’s the third time
she’s dropped by.
She makes mixtapes.
Pressing pause, pressing record,
stitching songs into a spine of hiss.
Once, to me, or to herself,
she said her father wanted a tape.
She’d mail it when
he had somewhere to send it.
She follows me across the bridge,
talking about her brother,
an ex-best friend,
mimicking her professor,
how he wags his tongue
when he writes on the chalkboard.
I haul a duffel:
apron, uniform, boots heavy with grease.
She skips in the rain,
strumming cables, humming
the last song played, still floating.
I unlock the door,
steeped in garlic and kitchen sweat,
boots leaving grime on the boards.
She isn’t there-
only the crates, stacked neater,
jackets squared, spines aligned,
as if her care was meant for me.
The room settles with her absence,
yet holds me upright
in its small, thoughtful hands.
From the Corpus Christi Journals (1993).
