BROKEN RECORD

by Richard Schnap

Leaving him watching the sun rise
As the needle revolved on his turntable
Stuck at the end of a song

He remembered the black leather days
The gallons of vodka with grapefruit juice
The ten thousand packs of Marlboros

The parties in run-down houses
Where someone would collect money for beer
And then vanish forever in the night

And sometimes there’d be a woman
Who’d afterwards whisper goodbye
Like a line she’d rehearsed from a play

Leaving him watching the sun rise
As the needle revolved on his turntable
Stuck at the end of a song