Crossed Wires by Diane Klammer

The telephone cries
to be held.
She cradles it to her face,
feeling it’s cold pliability
pressed against her cheek.
She wonders about the outcome
of another conversation.

How strange that a twenty four year
marriage can be compressed
into a machine,
distanced into
a telephone connection.

One thousand miles separate them.
A void stretches over and over
into words of wired speech.
They can hardly connect.

He said he wouldn’t leave
before having to fly
into another time zone
to keep his career.

When she hangs up
she and their children
work on a puzzle.
A crucial piece is missing.

They try to find
the one piece
to fill in a part of the sky
while they crawl along the floor,
searching throughout
the room’s emptiness.

Finally she finds a pair of scissors,
and begins cutting a box
to create a facsimile
of what would complete the picture.

The lone grey cardboard cutout
looks tawdry and dull
against the other bright colors
which do not fill in to whole.

Incomplete and off balance,
she cannot stop the ringing in her ears.