1978-10-09

Helen across the miles … on the wires
re-risen from where she’s gone … recognizable
her voice makes me feel love … memories
she says we’re not logical … it shouldn’t last
and she’s right, damn it!

This whip-snap girl who matches my every nuance
when she’s keeping it together
a flame who burns so bright she extinguishes herself
she shadows my every perception in her light
wistful…over the wires and the miles and the fields
needing her time to heal…and remembering our love
I feel so inexpressibly full … so full
when I want to hug her to hold her
and I’m holding nothing but the phone…
unable to empty, except to say, ‘I miss you, I care’.

Tender moment, balanced between need and decorum
wants and consideration, emotion and logic
pain and desire,
love… and loss … the phone’s plastic
and her voice in it.
and so we part with all that logic waiting in the future
and all these emotional months to come.

gallagher
9 oct 78

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

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