8 Track Summer by Anthony Guidi

When I reminisce,
It’s always summer.
We always gathered,
A lost tribe of
Neighborhood wanderers.
One night the curb,
Next the broken wall,
And one close companion,
My 8-track player.
A bright yellow music maker,
With a plunger on top,
Heavy with so many batteries,
And a single small speaker
That was big on sound.
It envelopes us with
A force field
Of stolen and pure time,
Making the dusk last long
Beyond the normal light.
We were stuck in that moment,
We worshipped every song,
And sang our favorites
Too loud and off-key,
And let our youth
Keep us in stasis.
The sun never seemed to set,
The streetlights never turned on.
Just us all
In that space,
Enveloped by sound,
Light, love, and happiness.
We never thought it would end,
And with the passing of time,
The moment is still frozen light on that wall.
It never did end there,
And that 8-track
Is still playing to us.