The Telephone

“cut off from the
rest of the world”
—David Trinidad, “Black Telephone,”
The Best American Poetry 2010

It’s amazing to me—
How the Phone trope works its way
Into this suppressed, secret Voice now
Coming to us from the bowels & archives
Of the British Library & Hughes Archives.

Isn’t it strange & weird—
Almost as if the Phone itself
Possesses a real life of its own?
Almost as if the Phone were a living
Breathing Planchette from the Dead?

A teacup writing the Storyline—
James Merrill’s homemade Ouija board
There at Sandover during those nights?
A film noir Phone call reaching out from
The Land of the Dead to us Living now?

Surely it’s a Wrong Number—
Like the old couple in their flat
Waiting for the Phone call with news
That their suicidal son is now dead
In Nabokov’s “Signs and Symbols”?