Poem of The Week, Forgetting the Phone, George Bishop

George Bishop's gonna also be in Issue 11, dropping Sunday. And that's all we feel like sayin'.

FORGETTING THE PHONE


by George Bishop
I’m hearing it
ring now—hours away,
my hand snapping at my side,
diving into a pocket while
a world begins breaking
down. There’s too much time
to think of what to say
and hope fades as I picture
the tiny light of the screen
disappear. I feel my way
through the blindness
of the day, the darkness
of this partial paralysis
thickening like oil
in my mind.

Then, I imagine the message—
always important when I
haven’t heard it. I listen to it
echo, rearrange itself over
and over like a eulogy
that’s gone too far.
And soon I begin to think
of the dead—when I let this
same silence serve as a warning,
some special revenge—or worse,
an answer.