It was like a fistful
Of nettles.
– James Galvin (“The Red Telephone”)
Into a purple wine bottle from the bare shores
of Biarritz, I rolled and poked a note and corked it—
believed the currents that tugged within might deliver
me and proclamations of love. I was thirteen.
Before the telegraph sang eerily across the plains,
young men slapped leather to California, let hat brims
bend for pennies to deliver messages, a fistful
of nettles that when gripped tightly will not sting.
At the end of the party line, there were no secrets,
yet nothing was ever clear—very little love
or enlightenment—mostly static on one end
or the other, especially when it really rained.
No excuses left, no bare wire, no Indians—
I am now tethered: fair game, a sitting duck
behind an answering machine. Almost free,
I delight at the scratchy sounds of a fistful.
drycrikjournal 