You can smell the basements of long ago
here within these cardboard sleeves,
slender spines creased and breaking apart,
the cold cinder blocks, stale cigarette smoke
and voices turned suddenly into ghosts.
You can hold the shroud of another world
half-awake, waiting to be rediscovered,
can wander aimlessly the long, narrow aisles,
the way you did when you were still a kid,
hungry for any sign of life to find you.
You thought those songs would last forever,
the way summer did in every chorus,
repeating endlessly into a silence not quite.
You thought that girl who taught you
to kiss would stay just a moment longer.
the sound of her laughter like the incantation
of something just beyond your reach.
You are still searching, thumbing the racks
for something you may have missed,
still looking and listening for a message
that has taken so long to find you.
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