1.5/30 Dredged Up Melody (Sestina)

Sestina for a Dredged up Melody

I came down here fully intent

on purging one more storage box

of all its old junk and failed again.

This worn cassette, the "Eros/Pathos Mix"

Someone made just for me, saying, "Listen,

I love you..." I am vague on the context.

And it's all about context

Not merely content. Mix tapes declare intent,

but you must know how to listen

unpack them like dream meanings, like Pandora's box

Mix tapes are made when our own words are too simple, a mix

of poor diction and things we can never take back again.

I was always taking her back, again.

That was surely the context.

We were an unsustainable mix

of selfless friendship and narcissistic intent.

More pathos than eros, the cassette box

title spoke wisdom in volumes. Our denial did not listen.

Side A, Side B. I am tempted to listen

unearth that yellow Walkman again

dust off the old boom box

hear the wrong kind of love, out of context.

I came down here to clean house. Never intent

on stirring pots. Oil and water still will not mix.

I remember these songs, a mix

of college bands we'd listen

to only on road trips, intent

on enjoying ourselves, always falling out again

just when things got good. Same issue, different context.

Rats in a labyrinth, we were never leaving the box.

I can't sort through this box.

Trash, treasure, and sentiment: Good mix

tapes are scaffolded architecture. Same junk, same boxes, new context

for souvenirs of a self I do not miss. I can not listen

to nostalgia pangs; vowed never to heed again

that atonement and endearment she recorded with structured intent.

I'd hear overtone context, read lines outside the box.

I would know their intent. She crafts a good mix

tape. I can never listen to those songs again.