33 RPM

I pulled it from the stack in the hall closet,

a square of cardboard with softened corners.

The plastic sleeve peeled back with a sound

like a bandage coming off a healing knee.

There, in the grooves of the B-side,

is a thumbprint I must have left in 2012.

It’s a ghost of oil and skin, pressed hard

into a song about a girl I don’t call anymore.

I hold the weight of it, twelve ounces of black

memory that I have no way to translate.

The needle is gone. The speakers are gone.

Just this heavy, ridged circle of fossilized air

and a smudge of who I was back then,

standing in a kitchen that didn't smell like bleach,

waiting for the chorus to tell me what to do.