Casette Tape 1996, Found 2018

You died one year later, but today
I press the silver button on this little recorder
from China and it’s 1996 again.
You died one year later, not long after
this recording from that radio show
about remarkable women, down on California Street,
blue San Francisco skies.
You died one year later, only now
it’s 2018 in my kitchen and your voice,
round hints of Midwestern twang (I did not remember),
resonates, reverberates, roils
against the big copper hood over the stove
where I cook dinner each night.
You see I’m doing alright mama,
pretty darn good actually in this house filled
with art and music and a man whose love
shields me from the gaping hole in my belly.
Until this cheap machine plays your voice
and reminds me that I’m your adult child now.
In a decade I will be older than you ever got to be.
Into that deep well I relentlessly piled stories on top of words
and whatever else I could grab ahold of.
Maybe if I shoved enough down that hole
I could turn it back into solid ground,
lay some gravel, build a swing set.
Let your grandchildren play there
and show them how to make a crown
from the white clover flowers
pushing up through the gray rock,
nevermind the buzzing bees.