The Telephone

“an instrument of terror
in movies like Sorry, Wrong
Number and Midnight Lace”
—David Trinidad, “Black Telephone,”
The Best American Poetry 2010

The Black Phone so deadly—
“Trauma object” reemerging
Once again now with the strange
Publication of Ted Hughes’ “Last Letter”
Recently in The New Statesman.

The Voice of Ted Hughes saying:
“Then a voice like a selected weapon
Or a measured injection,
Coolly delivered its four words
Deep into my ear: “Your wife is dead.”

The Phone thus becoming—
Something even more intimate
Than Trinidad’s “Black Phone”
Sitting there on his desk
In its shiny black obsolescence

Not just the trauma object—
Separation & impending divorce.
But also the messenger of death
About Sylvia’s demise supposedly
By suicide her head in an oven.