"One afternoon you fixed me" is an interesting first line and the line break foreshadows a relationship with the other in a positive light. Will the speaker be fixed at the end of the poem? The line also foreshadows the end, but the first stanza is the start of an anecdote and should be read all at once to make sense of where we are at and when we are at:
One afternoon you fixed me
lunch in your tiny apartment
cream of mushroom soup
from a can
and English muffins
We are observing a couple in the middle of eating something. I pointed out how "from a can" points to class -- poverty, simple things. So it looks like the speaker is being nostalgic about a past relationship and simpler times. I'm trying to think of other stories and ideas that fit this trope. I know there are many, but what comes to mind is past presidents like Obama and Clinton who talk about living in poverty to be relatable, but also true.
But we're observing here -- this cream of mushroom soup and English muffins in a tiny apartment -- a cozy and intimate experience which is then proceeds into more personal details
As you set our bowls
on a blanket
on the floor because you didn't
own a table
On my initial read, I wrote "poverty" next to the idea of "you didn't / own a table" which now that I think of it might be a little presumptuous. Maybe the you just didn't want a table. But this is another inference that might lead to poverty like a can of cream of mushroom soup.
you put on
a bad British accent and said
We're having crumpets
You know this scene could've been really dredged up to show how poor this event is and just another day, but the speaker remembers this accent, and the description isn't really about the place but the intention of serving something simple and having a little laugh here and there to really bring the scene together as a rich, intimate scene.
It was raining but there was
an abundance of light
coming somehow from a source
outside we couldn't see
I think this another way of saying the sun, but it isn't. It's an "abundance of light / coming somewhere." The exact location and thing making the light doesn't matter to the speaker rather the instance of the light and the rain in this moment which shifts.
From here that light feels like
what music sounds like
just before the record skips
Where is "here" in this poem? It's the time in the middle of nostalgia. Note how the abundance of light was a tactile image when initially it couldn't be seen as a visual image. The light here feels like a record skip. A break from routine. The music plays itself again in short bursts before returning again, and the feeling of the light recaptures this moment again and again. The record skipping simile feels melancholy to me like it's a broken memory ("fixed me") of a intimate time and makes me wonder what else about "here" could be expanded upon.
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