Jay Sizemore

Eulogy / Elegy Jay Sizemore

Elegy for the reel-to-reel I found at the Goodwill Someone's hands loved you: not mine. Your handle frayed, your buttons worn, lid cloth stained, with one working hinge. Your smell, like a wine cellar where dusty barrels have kept warm circuits and bottles labeled "Interview x or y." The years have left you struggling to remember the function of a microphone, the longevity of magnetic tape, voices carried like hummed songs in plastic throats or electrostatic. Now, your hiss is an imperfection, a breath drawn through a cigarette, mechanics like advanced spinal stenosis, reducing a proud father to a cane, permanent bed rest until decay. Your weight was a conversation, now a novelty for the silent.