LEDGER

An iphone can't be a palimpsest.
And the old one I used to use,
the one with a crack in the crystal

has lost its second life as a toddler toy --
won't hold a charge anymore
to power zebra or water sounds.

The pale blue onionskin paper
of my mother's red-bound datebook
still crinkles between my fingertips

but who will feel nostalgia
for smudged old screens
once the data has been transferred

to its afterlife
in a shape
we can't yet imagine?

This poem was written to the "address book" prompt at 30/30 poetry.

I haven't had a paper address book in years, nor a paper datebook, though I remember the way they used to get written-on and overwritten, outdated data scrawled-over, marginalia sprouting like mushrooms after a rain.