Mix Tape

Mix Tape

Take into your hand drifting wisps

from within her mind’s echoing caves,

 fragments of shared song, brief snatch

of melody, place alongside your own,

then blend together the harmony lost,

segued into a third stinging memory.

Picture him kneeling for long hours,

listening for blends, fading in and out,

your altar boy, tuned into life’s ways

forever. Well, days stack up the days

into years before even you’ve noticed

and cruel how casual refrains punish,

pushing us off, forwards then so away

from where anybody might wish to be.

But to regain a moment, to set down,

we'd crouch in deliberate concentration

for when it’s gone, at least taste again

brief frozen in songs our regrets long,

where tape hiss echoes your first kiss,

still sweet upon the beckoning breeze;

tart in blooming of warm spring days.

When our time unrolled in front forever

each immaculate sequence might hint,

leave clues, recall a golden something.

Listen well, make your careful choices,

where melodies sung recall our voices

shiver, hanging threads by river banks

of love’s words forgotten brought back,

replayed, rewound for only both to see.

Watch gears and cassette spindles turn,

we'll hear CD engines groan and churn,

shed tears that something lost will burn.