Postcard

January 4, 1969 fell on a Saturday.
People marvel that I remember things like that,
but there’s no magic involved.
It’s just that I was an unusual child.

Whenever I would add a book
or a phonograph record to my collection,
I would write my name on the jacket or flyleaf
to make sure that whoever borrowed it
would know where to bring it back.
But I didn’t stop there. Beneath my name,
I would also write the date, the way you might
enter a new birth in the family Bible.

A heavy winter was underway,
and snow was deep everywhere.
I went with my mother to Shadle Center.
There, at the long-gone Record Rack,
I spent my allowance on Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M.
by Simon and Garfunkel. When I got it home,
I found a felt marker and wrote my name,
and the date, on the cardboard jacket.

It’s gone. I gave that disc away years ago,
but for the years that I owned it, would often
turn over the cover and skim the liner notes
(noticing my name and the date)
when I put it on the phonograph to play.
The record went away, but the date remained.

January 4, 1969 was a Saturday,
a cold, gray, wintry day.
People think it’s phenomenal
that I can pinpoint things like that. But no;
It’s just that I was a child who thought
things like snowy days important,
and tried to save them, like postcards,
to be read over and over again.
Crazy? Autistic? Possibly so.
But though it hardly matters now,
it worked. I can tell you, it worked.