Wednesday, February 27, 2008


BLACK TRANSISTOR


My great aunt gave me a black
transistor radio with tarnished gold knobs.
I fiddled with it, spooned in soft
voices from the heavy, lisping tides of static.

I let it play quiet with candles burning while I lay in the bathtub and touched myself
for the first time to Barry Manilow.


They found her with music still playing low,

from the looming walnut wall console; a symphony station.

Face down in dark-stained roses of the carpet,

white lace doilies on polished tabletops still

hanging limp and dustless, windows shut.

I didn't want to play her radio after that, or hear the same song she might have heard
the music of the roses as she knelt down into them.

Monsters