Outgoing

Our answering machine still played your message,

and on the day you died Dad asked me to replace it.

I was chosen to save us the shame of dead you

answering calls. Hello, I have just shot myself.

To leave a message for me, call hell. The clear cassette

lay inside the white machine like a tiny patient

being monitored or a miniature glass briefcase

protecting the scroll of lost voices. Everything barely

mattered and then no longer did. I pressed record

and laid my voice over yours, muting it forever

and even now. I'm sorry we are not here, I began.

Source: Black Aperture (Louisiana State University Press, 2013)