Victrola
There is an empty chair where you would sit
on the other side of my dining room table
with the worn finish after fifteen years of use
It was beautiful when I bought it
We would listen to old records I’ve collected
from flea markets and antique shops
the black shellac sort with only one song on each side
Al Bowlly crooning a tune about a ring around the moon
on my Victrola made in 1922
A century old and it still appears almost new
Things were built to last back then
unlike today, everything including people
tossed away into the bin after only a few months or years
After dinner we would drink bourbon and muse
about the meaning of life, if there is any, which I doubt
but maybe you might change my mind
how we came to be who and what we are, a nobody and a star
watching through the window snowflakes floating gracefully
to the ground like a shower of down feathers
finding refuge for a few welcome hours
from a world that loves you too much and me too little
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