CD Find at Carrboro Flea Market

can't get that rap shit flying out
the radio, funky rhyme between crappy commercials,
disk jockey a moron and the basic
songs too much like cheerleading
to turn me on.

snapped off the radio noise, parked,
and stepped carefully into the monstrous
cave, a dusty, freaky, junk-piled-everywhere zombie of a place,
some old bastard clawing deep into some shit, grabbing a kids bike like a trophy, high
above his head, a fractured tooth smile
revealing crystal meth teeth.

shit, I needed nothin' but looked
in the record bin anyway, touching plastic fifty years old, and who was this guy Pat Boone with his
white shoes and plastic, jesus mouth?

like hunting for gold in Arkansas, I
pulled out a faded CD, yellowish tint, some singer
with a page boy staring back at me,
no smile, just a hint of Deborah Kerr or early Helen Mirren, a virgin no doubt
hung up on plasticized Pat Boone.

paid fifty cents, took it
outside, plunked it in the player,
and what a freakin' difference, goin' from stunt-brained rap to high class pop, or was it jazz?

I scanned the CD cover, some babe named Jo Stafford with
a silky voice, not forced, romantic,
just short of syrup, she
sang those words so true ,
and proved her game "just too marvelous
for words."