When the phone is finally caged, you are free as pulsing jazz at dusk, with all its tentacles.

 

When The Phone Is Finally Caged


When the phone is finally caged
And you are free as pulsing jazz
At dusk, with all its tentacles

You may then be aware
How the room surrenders to poems
Your eyes widening with each

Each better than the last
In an evening collapse of color
As the cicadas go calm

And birds land in your palm
With kisses from Grandma
Caressing pecks, twenty-three

Years later, fresh with onion
But tonight, in New York City
Your friend who has it all

Speaks of pain meds
And anguish, angustía
In Spanish

In Spanish, they say,
We make the dust
Glow if we can

In the disappearing moments
So thank the gods at dusk
And the poems, their birds and kisses