Page 12 - WTPO Vol. VII #5

5
Two Phone Calls Forty Years Apart
I. I used to help you make reeds We’d wrap the ends in wiry string
like electricians at a fuse box. Reds and blues. Sometimes yellow. Check for balance and symmetry knowing a stable reed requires
a perfectly centered spine a heart
for your oboe.
Persnickety oboe reeds
waiting for our breath we’d take turns
making mallard duck calls
exhaling our adolescence through the reeds
our lips adhered to the same woody place laughing until we snorted and hiccupped.
II. You call me at one a.m.
College dorm. Payphone at the end of the hall. I’m supposed to call someone I trust, you say.
And I wonder how much tequila or bourbon lingers on your tongue.
Wonder how your voice tremors when you say I am an alcoholic.
And then you tell me of all the nights you spent curled up like an embryo wanting to float back
into your mama’s womb how the closet
was that dark space before light before you could breathe on your own suspended there.
You tied yarn around the inside of the door handle,
yarn from when I taught you to crochet afghans and scarves
doilies and potholders. Tightly wound. Taut.
Like the wire around the base of oboe reeds.
But he always broke the yarn. Severed it as he banged the door open.
edges
a well-balanced tip.
Marianne Peel