Old Records

Les shows me his new Braun

tape deck. "After I've played them

three or four times I can hear records

begin to grind down. Now I play

them once, to tape." He's got a wall

of them, uncirculated coins.

Things go by, the summer draining

into the fall; breweries consolidalte,

there's a golf course where the woods

were. We're like a fire

and save things from ourselves.

Furtwängler's too-fast fourth movement

that I love, Coltrane breaking

his breath in the hissing rapids,

Janis in heat, Janis in scratch,

Bjørling's beautiful voice

ruined by whisky --

fuzz on the ripe notes and fuzz

continuing to grow.