two-tone composition unknown destinations an operator obsesses over pickup & hangup

one +1 more connected than 2. you will. and the company that will bring it to you is me

push digits into holes, keep spinning until you feel the click in place switch arms, hands tire

blinking countless lines, voice carrying fast & far on continuous copper wire silence costs us as much—

draw X’s & O’s in octothorps sleep clutching our handsets there is so much to exchange during long-distance calling

if you’re hearing this, it’s ’cause i trust you. there’s a lot of detail, high resolution scans.

i take an early flight. nothing good is easy. what am i forgetting? chocolate orange peels.

i program on the airplane to distract from humming in my eardrums; an engine whirring to life in my chest.

she applies the night before risks her body just for more. she knows she has to see it before i remember my face.

jetway’s made of glass, eyes have steel blades. what am i forgetting? 54-inch red shoelace.

“do you want to get the fuck out of this airport?” she picks up both bags before i can say a word.

she borrows a tapedeck. i hold her knee. is this ok? the postal service can’t ship this in a flat rate box.

distance desires ritual we find a matchbook what am i forgetting? ashen coffee. burning.

the next thing i know we’re at the terminal. lipstick can stain more than cardboard cups

time stopped in total: 14 hours, 28 minutes

i’m sorry i bumped into you. i thought you were a mirror. your clear surface showed what they saw of me then.

parties are meant for diffusion, but we focused instead. twisting the lens to almost make out what was there.

i’m sorry i couldn’t touch you. i thought you were a mirror. i feared leaving greasy prints for everyone to see.

museums of mailboxes and phones reveal past and future connections. a present — behind smudged display glass.

i’m sorry you didn’t see me waving at you in the city. i thought you were a mirror. you weren’t yet waving back.

being gay is hard sometimes. hotel bathrooms get steamy, you can’t always get the right angle before the image blurs.

i’m sorry we were interrupted. i thought you were a mirror. i never dreamed anyone would walk through it and shatter the glass.

i need to move but i can’t sleep. some things aren’t done yet. i’m hiding from sunrise, from men, under blankets and cardboard towers.

i’m sorry i looked so long. i knew you were a mirror, but i couldn’t spot the vanishing point. some reflections distort; yours perfects.

i often wake three hours before your sunrise calls for a response logbook already soaked with ink we laugh, but even if we could, why constrain our outporings?

one winter day you ask for notes on undersea strings aware of both the timbre and tempo of these songs we start singing together

i fall into an evening rhythm talking and yes moaning into the phonograph, my head then swallowed by the brassy cone our voices sound better inside

when you open your ears again there’s so much weather to hear : wind and rain and quiet calm that lasts too long and means too much we keep sailing even without a map

true, land divides us more than sea, but these two coasts call to us both maybe it’s the sirens or the sounds of wavecrash against the shore — the dangers of unfathomed depths