You Hate The Telephone

You hate the telephone

but will not see me

face to face

so I am left

beseeching you

long-distance,

trying to thread our love

along the telephone poles

of Vermont,

trying to tunnel it

under the Atlantic

as if it were

a rare fossil

I'd unearthed,

or an offshore pipe

bearing precious oil.



But it is your face

I love,

your funny grin

that now seems

cruel around the edges.

You do not wish to be

cruel-you,

the kindest person in the world,

but driven to curious

rages

when you feel

pressured, frustrated,

saddled with

an albatross of love

like an ancient

mariner

who tells his same sad story

to the wedding guests.



The telephone will not

suffice.

Coleridge would have

loathed it,

& so would his

mariner.

It is our modern

Person from Porlock,

interrupting poems,

interrupting loves

& forever

keeping us at arm's length.



I would look you in the eye

again, saying yes, yes, yes-

we have said no enough,

for the rest

of many lifetimes.