I lose the nerve to ring you, for what can I say

that you think you already don’t know

and I know deep down that at the times that I call, your phone

will be gently snoozing in time with your need for sleep, if honour

lets you close your eyes for a single minute.

Yet you know you are going to have to ring them,

even if it’s to arrange to crawl on your knees

and be penitent, surely remorseful and contrite

for why are they suffering

when you keep yourself out of sight.

 

I have checked every avenue I am able to do,

but how do I even begin to understand

that you have found alleyways I have no clue exists

and that there are no indications to the bin

of thoughts you have placed yourself in.

It is perhaps an impossible journey to be seen to pop your head

on the block that was once only fit for treacherous queens

but the master of the house is cross with you and the rage

contained is boiling over, scalding, ferocious

but to be contrite, truthful you must be.

 

Is there still trace of you, is the phone merely a quiet receiver

unable to take a call as I am unable to call you?

I have the suspicion but no evidence to be seen,

that this one-way street you have cornered yourself into,

this cul-de-sac beyond in which dinosaurs have become forgotten;

that somewhere in the middle of it all, your heart

is crying out for time to be erased,

I hope I am right,

I pray with all my worth, which may be small in your eyes,

that you pick up the phone and listen to the words whispered.

 

Ian D. Hall 2015