It’s a wire

into your head

– a mouth-

piece pressed

up to the mouth

as key after

key is punched

with your heart

on your lips

so some voice

at that other

end will ask

Can I help

you? then wait

to ask again

until some-

thing gives

to make its

one

moment

clear

that when we risk

speech or dare

listen

a line is

thrown down

that line we

call phone –

a tension strung

across un-

speaking

chasms whose

both ends

hold (hold

with hands of

strangers)

the receiver

sees every Iranian flick,

makes tiny notes in caffs,

likes a full English

but not a fried slice

because fried slice is ‘wrong’,

listens to The Beta Band,

sucks on a pipe full of cotton wool

that I bought him, pissed,

on Seventh Avenue,

dealt with his Mum’s suicide,

gets to the smallest exhibitions,

makes all technology go wrong,

stood by me when I went mad,

understands Hegel

reads a lot of S-F,

lives round the corner,

comes to Lambchop gigs,

eats too quickly,

drinks Maker’s Mark,

might be leaving town.