Cassette Sonnet
By Nicholas Powell
Published 1 January 2021
You gaze through a little window
at brown wound around two circles
and with a pen, straighten curlicues.
A circle shrinks as a circle grows
a half-drawn curtain in a rectangle.
Fading names, epitaphs, hits.
Dirty heads and the diva quits.
All wow and flutter, the lyrics are mangled,
spilling their guts which the machine eats.
Unkempt brunette, cold on the shoulder,
“You’ll dig it less when you’re older.”
The cases break and melt in heat.
They’re second-hand for 20 cents,
yet the catch amid the kitsch
is the write-protected glitch:
You turn into your parents
and it’s curtains. Stop/Eject, kaput!
You dozed off to Gordon Lightfoot.