An Elliptical Stylus
Don Paterson


My uncle was beaming: 'Aye, yer elliptical stylus —
fairly brings out a' the wee details.'
Balanced at a fraction of an ounce
the fat cartridge sank down like a feather;
music billowed into three dimensions
as if we could have walked between the players.

My dad, who could appreciate the difference,
went to Largs to buy an elliptical stylus
for our ancient, beat-up Philips turntable.
We had the guy in stitches: 'You can't...
Er...you'll have to upgrade your equipment.'
Still smirking, he sent us from the shop
with a box of needles, thick as carpet-tacks,
the only sort they made to fit our model.

(Supposing I'd been his son: let's eavesdrop
on 'Fidelities', the poem I'm writing now:
The day my father died, he showed me how
he'd prime the deck for optimum performance:
it's that lesson I recall — how he'd refine
the arm's weight, to leave the stylus balanced
somewhere between ellipsis and precision,
as I gently lower the sharp nip to the line
and wait for it to pick up the vibration
till it moves across the page, like a cardiograph...)

We drove back slowly, as if we had a puncture;
my dad trying not to blink, and that man's laugh
stuck in my head, which is where the story sticks,
and any attempt to cauterize this fable
with something axiomatic on the nature
of articulacy and inheritance,
since he can well afford to make his own
excuses, you your own interpretation.
But if you still insist on resonance —
I'd swing for him, and every other cunt
happy to let my father know his station,
which probably includes yourself. To be blunt.