My Father Was a Victrola

By Joshua Diamond

After photomanipulation by Luka Skalabrin

 

I inherited his high cheek bones
but Mother’s dainty wrists.
The son of a relic and a technophile,
I sit here naked atop my broken box,
too old for it now, but it’s still
more comfortable than the hard
wood floor. They tell me it’s red oak
with a lovely matte stain,
but I can’t see it. I’m afraid
I inherited Father’s eyes as well.
So I’ll never know these parchment walls,
but I know they are parchment,
Mother told me so.
So I sit and extract notes from the
seventy-eights of my yester-years.
Some of them are broken now,
but I can still pull the notes out.
I can’t play them anymore, since
I’ve grown too big for my box,
but I remember how they go.
That’s why I always hang
an eighth note from my horn.
That’s why I carry these shears.
For the Sixteenths.

 

Published April 2008