enter. space.

My boyfriend bought me a typewriter. Found it

in a grey suitcase with a tricky lock on a long table full of Christmas

characters: sassy reindeer, lean, Great-Depression Santas,

one virtuous Mrs. Claus. There was a choir too, full of little boys with bright 

round O-mouths and angel robes.

The typewriter was among these things, singing louder

than the sopranos and blue,

old-fashioned, kitchen-appliance blue,

like my dad’s first sports car, and my mother’s matching dress.

A tough guy said for five dollars, that baby

was mine. He said five dollars to take it

off my hands.

As we left, he felt the tickle

of loss in his fingernails. He remembered

the keys and the alphabet, mostly, the electric strike

of the machine, and the army son

who left-it-all

and-a-lighter

in Lafayette, the Midwest. What he forgot was that soprano

shade of plastic and dust, the aging baby-

blue, and why it mattered

even a little.