It’s hard to tell where to make the cut, my friend

the film-editor, tells me. But a cut

             is a cliche

                          in the digital age.

Our time’s not stored in feet or meters, but random

access memory, the high frequency prosody

of the server farm. E-I-E-I-O. My time

is stored on a cylinder, I reply, in a metal box.
             Leave that on the floor.
It’s hard to tell when to cut her off, my friend

the video editor, tells me,

I think she’s having another episode

as in a sit-com: a discrete narrative

with no connection to what preceded

                          or will follow.

She was asking me for money, this time

for shoes, and I gave it to her.

Every time she winds me back up,

and I crank the handle.              Canned laughter. 
Now she’s in Melbourne,

which is why I’m calling you.

She walked there in her new shoes.
But I have more urgent questions.

Is an episode for its audience

             or its sufferer?

An illness or a gift?

How did you get my new address?
*
The discount store carried a limited range of themes

you told me—each, in its own way, heartbreaking.

I cranked the handle, turning a steel cylinder.

Trees of green 	and roses bloomed

             in the public domain

             for me and you. 
Cliche closes distance. What a wonderful world we share

reference to, without knowing we share the world.

An episode for me and you.
We call a song timeless when it reminds us

our present disappoints,

             when it plays while we’re on hold,

and the theme does. I crank the handle and wait

                                       for you to pick up.
*
The theme returns from copyright protection,

             alights at my building.

Clacks up my vestibule in new heels.
Whether it’s a gift depends on what you ask for.

You only ask for my thoughts on time and to sleep

on my floor. We walk around, searching for anything open.

I play the theme in reply. Consider the structure

of popular song: though the chorus remains the same,

with each preceding verse its meanings change,

so each time I crank the handle I’m further

from the people I love.

             What a wonderful world.

To which you reply time is random, every moment

accessible from every other. Hey, this bar looks open.

I can’t hear this, I say. I can bear the drugs, the scrounging

money, the voices. I can bear the hold music, that I couldn’t hold

my relationship together and I moved

to this new city where I don’t know, can’t reach, anyone

but don’t tell me that everyone I love will be here

if I only crank the handle.

             Aren’t we already? you ask

and click your new heels together and disappear

             to buy a vape. 
Only later will I think to myself

that you were trying to tell me you were having an episode,

             to share the episode with me.

Will I think to myself, How are you going

in your music box?

                          Will I ask why, when I crank the handle,

do you not return with the theme?

And I think to myself, as though to you.

             Can you hear it, too? 
I’m really saying, I love you. 
That night, you knock on my bedroom door,

holding the theme in your hands.

ALEX, you say, ALEXALEXALEX!

             WHAT?

                          Crank the handle.