Compact Disc

by ..

Jessica Lee McMillan

 

you held one of the first CDs and said

this is the future

and the mirrored finish caught our faces

through a veil of shifting rainbows,

light bouncing from billions

of unseen indents

—light interference in a finite spiral

as if to say there are limits

to how many times a heart can beat

as sounds rise and fade

as we move from dawn to dawn

—a day, a surface of interrupted rays—

to the outer edge, then dark

 

in the future, when you’re hovering above,

you’ll see me in the tracks

you burned for me,

in the songs as they spin

into my daily rotation—

rays reflecting

off a round landscape

—counterclockwise,

spiralling from the inside out

as if rewinding time,

as if each rotation

is an indefinite source of light