March 14, 2021Grandpa’s Mixtape
The yellow wood of a No. 2 pencil
found its way into the round mouth
and small tooth of the cassette tape,
rewinding magnetic memory back
to Side A. The radio cassette player’s
mouth was hungry of forgetting, that
it was about to bury the recording with
the newest song played by the local
FM station. The recording began with
a breath, out from the sill of the lips
and into the reel, a message saddling
on silk magnet. The unmistakable
sound of an empty room, disturbed
only by a cough or the clearing of
a throat. The rain outside the room
trickled into white noise, and out of
the sonar mist was a testing, testing,
one, two, three, testing coming out
of nowhere, the amorphous sound
rising from the silhouette of tape,
forming into the shape of my grandpa,
his distinct baritone voice, walking
from the corner of my eye to the center
of the living room. He sat there, leaning
his head towards the cassette recorder.
I could only imagine who grandpa was
imagining singing to. Was it grandma
or his future kids, or grandkids? My
grandpa was singing the album of
his life, the kind of Greatest Hits that
no one else has a copy, but me, as if
the word singular could mean special,
as if secret is I have you to myself, myself
alone. Air inside the room was a thick
magnetic force, reeling my body into
the smallness of my childhood, wide-
eyed and wondered. My grandpa
was large in my imagination, but he
walked me through each question with
curiosity, that he was himself a child
recording the world through every
wrinkle and liver spot. If there was
a way for a pencil to spool my grandpa
back into a present. If I could turn
the cassette far and fast enough, time
travel would unravel, and my grandpa
would be doing his number live. But
that is not the sort of physics we live in
this world. We only have the time we
have, and space? Thousands of cassette
tapes filling dozens of boxes, waiting,
the body defying its physics through
memory. Each plastic and magnet:
a muscle, an organ, a touch, a hand
running through my hair, a kiss
on my forehead, a hand holding my
hand, and I have thousands of them,
versions of my grandfather as tracks
of Sides A and B that would outlast
me. I lean my ears closer to the owl-like
cassette player eyes and hear grandpa
speak, sing, his steps walking towards
the window, watching the rain water
the backyard. The recorder found its way
close to his chest: a planet hidden among
light years and bright stars, heart beat
transmitting a message into the future.
Nat King Cole was on the background
playing You’re My Everything, while my
grandpa’s baritone voice is a fine strand of
hair swaying on my arms, as if the living
room was a mixtape played on repeat.
from Poets Respond