Golden Oldies
The way I talk to you is this:
I tune my car radio
to the local oldies station
kill the engine and listen
as your voice traverses
the distance between us
resurfaces as a tune—
the Drifters, the Platters—
“This Magic Moment”,
“The Great Pretender.”
It’s then I recognize you.
You’ve come for me
with a little nudge to say
it’s all ok—and though
I don’t believe in afterlives
I know better than to look away.
Who needs cemeteries?
We control the airwaves.
*
Marc Alan Di Martino is a poet and translator whose books include Day Lasts Forever: Selected Poems of Mario dell’Arco (World Poetry, 2024 – Winner of the 2025 Joseph Tusiani Italian Translation Prize & 2025 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation finalist), Love Poem with Pomegranate (Ghost City, 2023), Still Life with City (Pski’s Porch, 2022) and Unburial (Kelsay, 2019). His poems and translations appear in Apple Valley Review, Bad Lilies, The Shore and many other journals and anthologies. His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and Best Literary Translations 2027. Currently a reader for Baltimore Review, he lives in Italy.
