Sometimes I try mid-afternoon.
34thparallel.substack.com
TIME WITH FRIEDA BY ARLENE ANG 34TH PARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 03
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Sometimes I try mid-afternoon.
The phone moves into place by itself
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in my hand. I realize
I hardly know her daily schedule.
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When she comes through,
it's not even her voice
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on the answering machine.
Sam, from next door, says
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it's so strangers can't tell
there's a woman
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in the house living
alone. Had she called me instead,
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I wouldn't have known
what to say. In the end,
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someone from the hospital called.
Sometimes when I recall
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her face in the morgue,
I tense with the awareness
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that she's about to speak up.
And sometimes
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I stop myself in mid-call.
I listen to the dial tone,
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hypnotized into missing
a number I hardly ever used.