(waiting for a phone call i know will not come)

	(1)

Oh jesus
Quite comfortably
inside my head
I am going mad.
Little pieces of who I was
are flaking off and breaking off
And pretty soon
I think those floor tiles are going to look
mighty inviting.
I'll count to one thousand quite slowly -
I'm not sure there are a thousand tiles 
but I can always start again at one if there aren't.
Or I could not bother counting -
That might be easier in the long run.
Each tile is much the same after all.
Cold stone, cold slate - 
if it weren't varnished little pieces might flake off, 
might break off.
Inside my stomach I'm tying a knot.
Getting an ulcer -
every home should have one.
Well, I don't have a handbag.
Let's make this a stress accessory - one for all occasions.
Do they come in grey, though, I wonder, to match the tiles? 
That'd be the nicest thing - a colour coded breakdown.
Always go in style.
The grey tiles, the pine bench, the rust-red fridge.
Too much like I'm empty inside, an hourglass run dry. 
There's only so long I can wait till I break. 
Until my jaw locks shut like a rabbit trap, 
and traps my voice inside.
	 

	(2)


So what am I going to do?
Spend the rest of my life waiting for the phone to ring?
But I've got better things to do.
(No, you haven't.)
I must have better things to do.
(No, you don't.)
It's coming up to midnight,
Two hours of waiting have passed like a week.
And the phone sits silent,
And I'm waiting for a call that will never come.
I shouldn't even expect a call.
If the phone were to ring I think I'd die.
It's not going to happen.
And I've got better things to do.
(Things like sleeping.)
I must have better things to do.
(But I don't.)
I'm turning into a pumpkin here.
This is some elaborate torture I've devised.
The telephone isn't going to ring,
And someone out in the street is spinning his tires.
I hope he's having some kind of fun.
I'll probably be here in an hour's time,
Still waiting.
Like those old men with the sandwich boards:
'The End Of The World Is Nigh'.
I think they believe it.
Force themselves to believe it.
It's as likely a story as any other, after all.
As likely as this one a.m. call
Which isn't going to happen.
I can rely on that -
It's all I can rely upon in these circumstances.
Filling pages and pages with words.
Passing time in a river of drivel,
I wave to the empty riverbanks where the crowds
Aren't standing.
Where they don't wave back.
And at the end of every river (I should have realised this)
Is the deep black ocean
(It's midnight, remember?),
A sea of despair.
That's my flair for drama coming through, I must confess.
Despair's not exactly knocking at my door.
It's a pity, in a way, no one's answered my VACANCY ad.
It puts me in mind of that Roald Dahl story -
You know the one? -
About the landlady who poisoned her tenants.
I don't know why I just thought of that,
Or why I'm writing this in poetry format
(it's not a poem, after all),
Or why I'm up at 12:15, waiting;
Waiting for a call I know won't come,
Futile, really.
Stupid.
I think I'll go to bed -
But what if the phone rings then?
Then what?
There's one part of me, you see, which still believes:
The phone will ring.
And I'll be asleep by then.
Better than cracking my skull like an egg on the tiles,
I suppose.
At least then SOMETHING would be ringing
Better than this silence.


December 2, 1995
© Lela Kaunitz