Somewhere out there, an operator plugged in
the wire of your voice to the switchboard

of Arkansas where I am
happy to accept the charges—an act so antique
I think of Sputnik beeping

overhead, lovers petting in Buicks
and glowing with the green of radium dials.

But what you’ve called to say is lost
in the line’s wreckage of crackle and static.

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Tagged: Ash Bowen, Ash Bowen poem, Collect Call Ash BOwen, contemporary poetry, poem, poetry, Sputnik