45 record, 33 speed

Tiny scratch on the motorcycle gas tank.

I am caught on that insubstantial score 
that skips the record back—

Might as well face it 
might as well face it 
might as well face

the collection sewn together
with needles and handlebars
and parkin sons and bloodlessorders 
and aqua nets of age that catch all 
and never lose their hold.

This scratch joins the loop,
jarring at the start, jagged at the end
across one thousand eight hundred twenty five and two 
plays alike in the same,
the same, the same,
the same;

I watch the best go down,
the pure, the strong, the virtuous; 
slow, in a drag,

the world purges its favorites.

There’s a tiny scratch in every thing. 
Every surface,
every tank
wears an inscrutable flaw,
hidden to all but the eye 
fixed on the fissure
that some giant
used for a toehold
to kickstart his ascent,
listening for the right tune to ride.