By James Haug

Someone placed a box of records by the curb because it was hoped that someone would want to take them away. They’re records no one wants but maybe someone will want them. Someone driving will stop. Someone walking will stop. That is the pleasure of looking through records. Then the sun clears the tree across the street and shines on the records and makes the colors of the record jackets festive even as it robs them of their pigments. Someone will stop and rescue them from the sun. Someone will look up at the empty house behind the box of records at the curb to see if someone is watching. The people on the jackets smile and smile with their best hair, maintaining resolve all night in a box by the curb. Someone will stop and bring them home and listen to what they have to sing. Someone will carry them off out of the rain. Someone will spread them on the grass to dry.

James Haug’s books and chapbooks include Legend of the Recent Past, Why I Like Chapbooks, and Scratch. Cuba Hill Diary, a little book using drawings from 1930s-era comics, has just been issued by Scram Press. New work appears in Conduit, jubilat, Fell Swoop, and FIELD. His book, Riverain, appears in the Field Poetry Series

Originally published in Issue 19.