Skipping Tracks

I pulled it from a box of kitchen gear,

a circle of black light in a cardboard sleeve.

It smells like woodsmoke and a different year,

a Sunday morning I didn't want to leave.

There’s a jagged line across the middle part,

a scar where the needle always used to trip.

It would stutter like a nervous, beating heart,

caught in a loop, a sudden, steady slip.

I held it up against the bare bulb’s glare,

seeing our history etched in the grime.

Just a piece of plastic sitting there,

holding onto a broken piece of time.