Discman

A hiss coming from the Jaguar,
the electronic chewing on the cd,
music dancing, then bending,
my hair mixed with my sisters',
road purring under tires.

mixed titles taped: "emo," "sad," "acoustic"
curated by Pixies, Hole, and Weezer.

A real man listens to good music,
the greats grow up on the classics,
my taste shaped, no rubrics.
You showed me your first cd,
here, there, and everywhere,
it spun like a revolver in me,
coaxing sound from thin air.
Beatlesmania was a gateway,
a sample where your past meets my becoming,
blackbird in the driveway,
head on your desk, both ears succumbing.

My player is a pink egg, hatching open
a cacophony of grief and glitter.
I'm the luthier, plucking marionette strings
until they sing out a choking note of mourning
or some hyperpixelated sound to shake the walls
and kiss the stickers on tracks
that gently trace the shell.

Stacks of crispy cases,
dance in the spinning wheel,
hum Waking Up in Vegas,
every track a bet I take.
Fingers tap along the basses,
thumbprints pressed that won't seal,
a menu of bands to plague us:
Pumpkins, Peppers, and Cake.

Our
Songs:
Somewhere
Only
We
Know.
Save
It
For
Later.
In
A
Big
Country.
Better
Together.
etched
into
the
disc.

Music is a medal
given in tiny increments
through well-worn cds.

A dusty bin in the attic,
swimming in dead bugs,
Homan Christmas 2011,
red, blinding, and scratched.

I cannot play it, even when
I scrub it with toothpaste,
or put it under scalding water.

The songs don't need to burn through
to know what's on it.

Paul McCartney & The Wings.
Wham.
The Waitresses.
your favorite,
"Green Christmas" from the Grinch movie.

"All new music is trash."
"It all sounds the same."

All songs sound different
on Christmas Day.

Blowing air into the drive,
flipping through silk slipcovers,
a freshly burnt Homan Christmas 2026,
melting the plastic,
dripping
"Christmas Wrapping"
and "Carol of the Bells,"
telling ourselves
to simply have a wonderful Christmas time.

Thinking of you as discs turn,
songs moving in quiet orbit,
until I snap them shut,
stuck between tracks, compact.

Cracking open again,
a passing torch
of memory
in a little circle.

Nails nudging the notches of volume.
That radio rock opera musical,
antenna spitting like a spring door stopper.
That Fun Boy Three album
your roommate played (you hated it),
sang operatically when it came on TV.
"Do the dishes,"
to the tune of The Hustle.

That cold shame of placing
my BTS cds
next to your Police record.

Frank Sinatra's "What'll I Do?"
at your wedding.
I prefer the Bob Dylan cover.

Vinyl looking down
on their smaller cousins,
cds honored like nobility:
Kings of Leon and Queen,
placed high above
less refined albums.

Posters of shaggy hair,
ringed fingers around guitars,
smugly looking down
at their hits.

Scratching the reverse
till it's a white,
mysterious button
next to "play."

A sacred little gathering,
songs wrapped in towels
of polypropylene,
waiting to be pushed
into the pool of sound,

backstroke
to hear that one part
we both like.