**Poem: "Radio"

 

 

 Radio

 

I wish I still had a radio in the bathroom

like back on Liberty St., Hone St., maybe even

here at first, a gift from Dan, part of

his dead grandmother’s things.

The kind of radio you see now in the

“You’re This Old If” memes,

small, brown plastic with twisty dials,

antenna built into the cord.

Eventually the belts inside must have loosened,

and it only played one station, but

it was a station I liked,

the one from Woodstock

before it melted down into one long

hipster serenade, when it played

rock, jazz, blues, classical, country,

even read books aloud.

These days, I can’t risk propping

my cellphone up on the toilet or

beside the sink, because, inevitably,

my day will be ruined.

I pile books into a basket behind the door,

and in the shower I am confined to

solitary time with only my thoughts,

the ones that used to be gilded by

the goings on at WDST.

They are bare as I am then,

pushing their heavy agendas of

sorrow, guilt, even a little nostalgia

for good measure.

Naked, I am at their mercy,

unprotected by familiar riffs,

droning DJs repeating the weather,

a hardware store’s insistent, endless

dirge.

 

CAR   5/10/24