78 RPM
In the back of the junkhouse
stacked on a cardtable covered
by a ragged bedspread, they rest,
black platters whose music once
crackled, hissed with a static
like shuffling feet, fox trot or two-step,
the slow dance of the needle
riding its merry-go-round,
my mother’s head nestled
on my father’s shoulder as they
turned, lost in the sway of sounds,
summer nights and faraway
places, the syncopation of time
waltzing them to a world
they never dreamed, dance
of then to the dust of now.
Poem copyright ©2009 by Jeff Daniel Marion. Reprinted from his most recent book of poems, Father, Wind Publications, 2009, by permission of Jeff Daniel Marion and the publisher.