PEACE
It was the payphone at the
Abandoned gas station;
The payphone stationed
In a vertical blue manger,
The crooked payphone
Whose chrome slit
only accepted
Quarters, the same phone where
A week earlier, hung over from my
Late night labor day fete,
the prostitute
With thick stropped boots
Whose angular chin and sloping gait
Reminded me somehow of
Hester Prynn stomped
up
And solicited told me that if I’d give her a
Twenty dollar bill she’d give me a
Blowjob and thinking, in that moment
That perhaps I could somehow save her
I emptied my wallet and asked only
That she give me a hug
Rushing back later that day, my
Pantry emptied in a cardboard box
My confirmation bible
Saluted beneath the pit of my arm
I found only the slender
slope of the payphone
coiling from it’s
Receiver, the tail a fresh suicide
Casting a downtrodden
Shadow in the opposite
Direction of the saffron-raked
sun.
The dial-tone, still
Emitting a warbled devotion
Informing me that I was somehow
too late.
Later
The day when the sleek coated
Macadam plummeted
From the hard nickel of heaven
Stitching a metallic nest
parched rubble cratered protein
I held the cyperoptic conch
In my hand like the fetus we lost
Gouged out the numerical bleeps
Knowing that your husband
Would probably answer that phone
Which, of course he did
And I asked for you
That moment I cupped
The dove swoop of your tongue
In my ear
Tilted into my shoulder.
I didn’t have to identify myself.
I told you what I should have told you long ago
Then I asked for forgiveness
In that moment
My baby, my darling girl
I swear,
You were cradled in the girth avenues
of your own husbands arms
Accompanied by the Dim lit aquatic
glower of the television
Closeups of befuddled
newscasters in loose ties
In that momentary shuffle
In that atomic hush
When you didn’t know what to say
So you said nothing
Some how then
We found peace
We found it
Alone
After all this time
There was somehow peace
Somehow we found it,
still.
--for Megan Kristin
No comments:
Post a Comment