Who'd have thought it would be a cell phone.
I'd have guessed flapping silvery river trout
or panting night-club lovely.
These fingers have a history of fusing tight:
around beer bottles, dumb-bells,
even the hangars in speeding commuter trains,
either holding on for pleasure
or from fear of letting go.
And now I'm clutching nothing but
a digital dial, a speaker, some buttons,
a technology insisting
that I chat over many miles.
It's all in aid of clenching hard
to the distances in conversation.
But when I hang up, it's the cell phone I'm gripping.
When I hang up, I hear the voices fall.
