’You Up?
My ringtone is a song from my libretto,
“The Opposite of Fear is Love.” It’s the eleven
o’clock number, but I’m not used to hearing
it in the middle of the night. I often
keep the phone turned off. I’m relieved it doesn’t
wake my spouse; she gets up early, works long days.
But no, she hovers in her tenth dream as I
fumble the holler box to my ear. “Hello?”
my tongue clumsy. I’m shocked to hear your timbre,
stunned to realize I’d forgot its cadence.
So relieved am I to hear from you, I don’t
think to wonder how you’ve managed it. You weren’t
good with your cell phone here on earth, even one
with big numbers and extra volume. Even
the cordless proved too taxing at the end; you’d
lie in the hospital bed I’d installed in
the living room and howl my name, phone clutched
in your hand. What device have you mastered that
allows you to ring me now? In what time zone
is the Beyond? You don’t care about waking
me, as you didn’t those weeks when pain’s steel blade
slashed deepest in the middle of the night. You’d
cry out ’til the sound of my name pierced slumber;
I’d stumble downstairs to dispense a pill, rub
your legs until you tumbled into rest. Since
you left, my sleep is fitful anyway; I
ruminate on questions I forgot to ask.
Now in this waking dream they once more elude
me, scurry like roaches from my mind. But words
aren’t the point. It’s enough to lie in the dark
and breathe with you. At least, I’m breathing, night tucked
around me, pillow bathed in the phone’s soft glow.
© 2023 Terry Wolverton
Where you’ll find me
I admit, it isn’t easy. Around here
things are always changing.
Different roads bear the same name—
Cazador Street/Drive/Court,
winding into hills at a precarious pitch,
leading to dead ends or entirely other
neighborhoods, no room to turn around.
Some thoroughfares, like eager starlets,
shed their given names—a stretch of Sunset
becomes Cesar Chavez; Rodeo Road (not Drive)
is now Obama Boulevard. Second-hand shops,
the candle store, once landmarks, are leveled,
replaced by indistinguishable high-rises;
their poker-faced facades mask what’s inside.
Chinese priced out of Chinatown, punk clubs
and artists’ studios succumb to high-end galleries.
There was once a trainyard where hobos
camped under the bridge—remember hobos?
Now it’s a state park with landscaped lawns,
paths of decomposed granite, shiny restrooms
the homeless can’t use after dark.
It’s easy to get lost in this erasure. Googies and Blairs,
Tower Records, Atomic Café are but debris,
nothing to navigate by. I might once have said,
“Go past the laundromat and come up the hill,”
but now, I can only offer, “Follow the hummingbird,
the music of jasmine, the slanted shadows
of afternoon” to arrive at my front door.
© 2023 Terry Wolverton
