A Wonderful Phone Call

For Sheila         

Here again is the cramp in the arm

I won’t complain about—the one from

an hours-long deepened talk with a friend

while holding the phone to my ear. Why

not turn on the speaker?  Stretch slowly,

then hang up, we who see digital

culture through relics of older days.

Do we still “hang up” the telephone? 

And talking, are we still distant and

invisible to the families we left, or

to those who left us along the way?

When it is more and more possible

to predict the future, will I want

to know?  When I am dead, will I watch

life as if it were a long movie?

My blog poems are rough drafts.

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     © 2021 Susan L. Chast