time capsule
2 Minutes Read Time
this is what you’ll never find: VHS
cassette reeling until you’re young again;
tape-head cleaner in an eye-drop bottle
stored above room temperature. remember
when, midaction, you push on eject
to use the rewinder until the spool
runs out of breath, the other lung so dark
& full the past recreates itself; father’s
vinyl player turns a song into silt
inside your mouth; a jar of red wax you
must refuse to call candle for the lack
of a wick passed through the eye of Baa᷆mi’s
sewing machine years before the tremor.
until the cloth catches moth; a bunch of dubious
keys teethed into a door locked away
from your father’s silhouette; a stash
of debit & credit cards; your fur
so much in a comb’s teeth it could pass
for a woolen corpse; a violin case
sealed until you open your mind to
the torture of its timbre; the gourd of
the mbira long abandoned before
a plucked note can ripen from its tines;
a toy car on the rim of a cane chair;
a pebble stained from a bloodied toe
and father’s love, the size of a salve bottle;
a snake’s skin mummified in the attic
of my brain; Baa᷆mi’s face sad in a frame.
Read more from Issue 19.2.
