Victrola

There is an empty chair where you would sit on the other side of my dining room table with the worn finish after fifteen years of use It was beautiful when I bought it We would listen to old records I’ve collected from flea markets and antique shops the black shellac sort with only one song on each side Al Bowlly crooning a tune about a ring around the moon on my Victrola made in 1922 A century old and it still appears almost new Things were built to last back then unlike today, everything including people tossed away into the bin after only a few months or years After dinner we would drink bourbon and muse about the meaning of life, if there is any, which I doubt but maybe you might change my mind how we came to be who and what we are, a nobody and a star watching through the window snowflakes floating gracefully to the ground like a shower of down feathers finding refuge for a few welcome hours from a world that loves you too much and me too little