The late phone call brings the voice
from China, from Illinois, from Intensive Care.
The snow has stumbled south from Seattle.
The airlines hold their passengers as collective breath
while sleet marches southeast to Los Angeles as rain
where county commissioners count storm drains
as items for next century’s budget, and news cameras
will turn tosporadic rivers in concrete beds
mounting current enough to sweep away
children impervious to warnings against
the fascinations of waters
rushing garbage from the city into the sea.
The news crews wait through clips of murders,
and hit-and-runs, holiday fires and asphyxiations.
The clouds twist south through the dark.
The phone sleeps. The patient seeps IV meds.
We remember the turns of the last conversation.
We will talk again. Friends can choose
to outwit the rains, to pray out symptoms.
Friends will speak despite death and thunders.
In the comfort of drumming waters
down the rooflines,
each will know
the other’s voice.
About R.S. Carlson
