It’s hard to picture the post office
where you queue all day
to place your call.
Is it like the souks in films?
Is there a boy with a goat under his arm?
Are the women eating watermelon?
Here it rains all day.
I wait for the connection,
our careless talk without a grip.
If only I could blend
an essence of my words,
and send them down the line
to reappear in technicolour
at your end – or we had tins
and thread and hours to play.
Each call we learn no more, no less.
If you get through, I’m hot,
like I’ve been dragged on stage
and lost, because you laugh my name,
but I can’t see you.
Becky Cullen