A Brief History of The Rock’n’Roll Era (Time-Life Music) Vinyl Collection by T Guzman

Your mom’s religious about cleaning and about music.

Doo wap and funk and Santana and Frankie Valli, and oh, baby, oh, Maurice White.

Always Maurice White.

Music her la raza cosmica.

You push furniture to the side. Roll up rugs. Old English and rags. Windows open. Glide in socks on wooden floors. Swing them hips without hesitation. Condition side to side, letting it soak in till the whole house smells like linseed oil and lemon.

Saturday breeze. Natural light. Praise the hustle mijo. Hustle.

And Tequila comes on.

1958, The Champs.

Side Two, Track Five in the groove line.

And even though you’ve just wiped down the cabinet record player, you climb up. Do the Pee-wee Herman dance cause you love Pee-wee Herman and you can do a mean Pee-wee Herman. You’ll have to re-polish the cabinet, yes, and it makes the record skip, yes, but your mom’s stopped what she’s doing. It’s nice to see her smile. Even if she’s a little tired cause she’s always tired cause it’s just you three boys in this big house that she won’t let go just yet, and she’s always tired cause there’s a night shift in a warehouse and day shift at a corner store and lunch shift at a Pizzeria, and it’s nice to see her smile, so you go on. Put a little more into it. Make that record skip back a beat and skip back a beat and skip back beat

and skip back a beat.

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T Guzman writes, and does things in general. MFA graduate of Northern Michigan University. Published in Homology, Landlocked, Press Pause Press, and elsewhere. Zebra Cakes connoisseur.

Artwork: T Guzman