I work in the fragile echoes
of an imagined life
where goodbyes are spoken
and never meant.
There is a television playing in another room
or perhaps people are talking
in the way that they do
when they share secrets,
but in any event
I hear the talk.
A woman loves two men.
Moments become habits
and you are poised to occupy
yet more of me.
I close my eyes, cast back
my head,
invite it.
A hurried call before a flight
out of town
is a lifeline,
an utterance of the
only commitment possible
in a vast and
unnavigable sea of complications.
This call will pass
between cellphones,
year after year
even as instruments are upgraded
and photographs transferred
into the newest thing,
oh look how light it is,
how it fits my hand.
The Call. Always.
In a crowded terminal where
I am delayed by storms,
I discover that you
can drink in airports,
actually walk out of a bar
with a glass in your hand.
I do this.
My guard is down.
You call, and I
imagine ditching the trip,
the only purpose
of which is that I impart
things I no longer care
about to bored people
who need the training credits,
me, lonely, waiting with my indifferent
audience for sufficient time to pass
to call it done and
lurch out, mid afternoon,
squinting against sun
on glass in the big lobby
to beat the rush to the hotel bar.
I will arrive at my destination
long after the obligatory
reception has ended,
sign-in tables cleared
and folded away,
ice melted to room
temperature in dirty glasses,
backs of name tags littering
the entry hall,
nothing left but to
wander to my room, undress,
and fall into a shallow
and unsatisfying sleep
where I will replay every
word of the Call,
every detail,
the woman,
two men,
love.
I am running through rain,
leaving the airport,
ditching the flight.
The conference.
A great deal more.
Then I am jangled from ragged sleep
by the unfamiliar alarm clock,
feeling for the button,
does this thing turn off?
and I am thinking again about your call
and I need to call back
just to tell you
I’m here,
made it safe,
yeah, slept okay, you?
Woman.
Man.
Love.
Call.
Always.
And evermore in airports I think of you.