Pay Phone

I saw a pay phone the other day in the age of handheld cellular devices.

I am worried that’s

            what will happen to me

            when I die.

            [Left alone where I last shut my eyes.]

            Left for people walk by but never see,

            because I am not on their phones.

            Dead                and                  invisible but left to raisin under the sun.

Have I done enough to be remembered? Have you?

Well, it’s raining now, and I wipe my cheek.

At the gates of Babylon, a tiny man waits.

He said he lives in the pay phone, and to pick it up and listen.           I did.

He whispered through the dead device,

            You’ve done enough. Your memory will live on. Now hang up.

The little man, then took the phone, jumped and swung

                        like a trapeze artist, let go and soared into my ear.