Lost Time

Obsolete cassette tape:
Dated 1986 in black marker.
Laughter recorded by mistake,
Thanksgiving dinner conversation.
Snapshot of a suburban,
American family
in sound form.

My parents were still married.
My grandparents were still alive.

The tape holds onto a past
that has long left my fingers.
Grandpa gone in ‘93.
Grandma: this past February.
Mom and Dad parted even before
the following year’s dinner.
A family scattered like bits of sound.

The contents of the tape remain,
buried in a box in a garage somewhere
but the life is lost with time.