Party at the beach!
But J refuses to go
because he can’t swim.
11 years old. All day
I watch his cuteness
break open and fall away.
He finds Etta James
on YouTube and says,
“When I’m sad, only sad
songs make me better.”
Already a needle
in his heart knows
how to find the chords
for all he’s missing: 
direct sunlight, easy listening.
Already the wax
cylinder’s spinning
its old technology of longing,
and I recognize the boys I knew
in the 80s and 90s,
who dragged me to Fallout Records
so they could “look for something.”
What? It has no name, this sadness
that feels like happiness.