Poetry by Elyse T
I am lost in a voicemail limbo.
My words misshapen enough
to forget their origins. Help me
find them through the cell phone static?
Tangled in cobwebs of missed calls.
An occasional, shallow sorry glimmering
near your phone’s speaker.
I imagine you might pick up
this apology with the same hand
that fosters canyons in between fingers.
Dips them in sunlight.
Let’s them soak for a second too long.
I’ll swallow this floating distance
between us. Drown miles of aching
with these frail hands that nurse prayers
of your return. Do you remember
where you misplaced your body
on its journey past a paling sky?
Let me cushion your cloudy goodbye
with a cerulean iloveyou,
so swiftly evaporating—
you pretend you never heard it.
Let’s envision I am only a foot away.
Arms spread wide enough
to clutch your shoulders in their fall.
Let me hold you the way you make home
within the arms of your hotel.
