The dark and quiet, short-lived both,
each a little hang-up, the line’s
tiny death. The light stops just enough
to blanket the soup bowl, the afghan’s
tatters, the stopped clock, the slide
of magazines to the dusty floor.
As if the pause whispers departure,
the assurance strong as water moving,
that it all leaves for a moment,
before the next blush of car tires,
disemboweled vampires, spinning chickens
over a home cook’s electric embers.
Each channel is a call, and you wonder:
is it how we wait for the call, for what might
be there? Or is it how we hang up,
letting the dark, quick and thorough,
promise us the next world,
the one we can’t yet see?
