Bird-Shaped Cliff

Sometimes I think about climbing

a telephone pole but then what?

Telephone poles now have almost nothing

to do with telephones but I liked

how a curly cord went into the receiver

then a sturdier black wire went into the wall

through the wall out to a pole then

miles and miles of wire pole wire pole

sometimes underground underwater to

whomever you needed who’d dry her hands

thinking Gosh now what or Thank heavens

or Oh no then say Hello as a question

or a lie then the intimate negotiations

and sorry confessions and flat jokes

would take word form from excited electrons

moving through the wire and sometimes

a cowboy would suddenly gallop to town

through dust and cactus Yup a storm’s

a-coming to call someone but the fates

always intend so the cowboy must listen

for the rest of his days to the phone

make a funny insect-performing-Beckett

sound until the operator comes on and says,

Sorry but that calling area's been hit

by the blast and the cowboy thinks,

What blast? What blast? riding off

into the moonlessly blue chaparral.

Copyright Credit: Dean Young, "Bird-Shaped Cliff" from Shock By Shock. Copyright © 2015 by Dean Young. Reprinted by permission of Copper Canyon Press.

Source: Shock By Shock (Copper Canyon Press, 2015)