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Connection Problem
The phone rang
several times
Before I decided she wasn’t home.
My grandmother, strong in will and spirit.
Was waiting for my call.
And the day passed uneventfully.
Again, I dial her
number a day later
And hear the sound of something missing
A connection that cannot be completed
To my grandmother, weak in body.
And the day takes an unpleasant turn.
It rings true in my
mind
That indeed she had not been
Of sound health, just two days before.
I call again, and this time my mind lets me see
Her phone, ringing near her expired body.
Forty-eight hours
since last contact.
And I can see her falling, collapsing
Near the phone, but it may as well be miles.
And she hears it ring, but cannot move
I am right there, at the other end of a wire.
Repeated calls are
met with the same
Open ending, an incomplete connection.
My keys jangle louder in the ignition
Than I remember them doing before
And my cell phone makes no better progress.
My mind wonders when
her last breath
Would have been. Between
which ring? Which day?
And had she moaned, or cried, or cursed my name?
Was she moaning still?
Had the ringing become a taunt to her?
Her driveway pulls
into view.
And I imagine the smell already.
Her heater, turned too high,
Wafting the odor of her lonely corpse
Through the vents in every room.
I forget which keys
are hers,
But I’ve used them a hundred times before.
They are hiding among the others
Afraid to turn the lock, which greets death
On the other side of red painted wood
Would she be waiting
for me there,
Just inches away, forcing me to push her body
Backwards, so that I could enter?
Could she have waited there in vain for the postman,
Or a sales person to hear her scratching at the wood?
Would her spirit be
standing there, cold
Ethereal and detached from her cadaver
Drawing at my chest, snuffing my breath
Stealing one beat of my heart for
Every time I had made her phone ring?
Would it be something
different entirely,
Not death from a failing heart, but life stolen
By an intruder, seeking money, jewelry
Or unspeakable satisfaction from a few
Vicious attacks? Would I stumble on his handiwork?
The knob turns, the
door opens easily.
I brace for the first whiff of decay
And somehow it surprises me very little
Although my resolve was firm,
That I smell nothing unusual.
I call her name, but
there is no answer.
I walk slowly through her home and feel
A definite absence of spirit, and through the window
Of her garage door, I see a site which stops my heart:
Bare concrete, with no car above.
Relief?
Or perhaps shame at my unguarded mind.
I scratch her a note to let her know I came
Reassuring her of my continued concern
And when my phone rang later,
The connection I had been seeking
Was
finally made.
October 13, 2000
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