In the thrall of your looming dialtone

The phone shrills, eternally

Until it stops, beyond a threatening hiatus

In storm clouds starts again

An annoying reincarnation, when the machine kicks in

Of a robot voice, the timbre thin

And splintered, with the urgency of desperation

Yet, pronouncing stumble stilted

Admonishments and infractions

Warnings ending with that spy film click

Of an unseen listener, purpose all but unknown

The intent, inexplicable

Except perhaps to instil

A vague anxiety

As if somewhere, cloying in a desert land

A machine lumbered ingracefully 
Towards us, having cut the line

Nothing left

But an ill-determined menace



A cat’s breath

In my mouth

That strangely intimate purr

As if I were a child feeding

On some wild nectar

In the cup of too wise savagery



The insistent hunger

When a voice in the white noise

Of emptiness, says suddenly

Is that you?



And as then, I still don’t know

Which one of us it was, or is

That speaks