pay call "please deposit one dollar and eighty-five cents" my hands grip the cold clear around the booth I can see wind catching tumbleweeds and stacking them thorny, coffined in glass I wait as in ambush for the passing of cars: wrecks and alternatives you can't talk to the voice: it knows its own language and nobody else's "please deposit..." if I slam the receiver, will the panes crack – raying and falling outward? freedom through violence, I've thought of that but glass is everywhere here and behind the images I see my face repeated in the yearly file of windshields: a madwoman muttering numbers to herself pick the right one, I tell her – don't collaborate © 1990 by Beth Stevens |
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