Practical Water

Phone Booth

1 7 There should be more nouns For objects put to sleep Against their will The “booth” for instance With coiled hidden wires Lidded chrome drawers Tipping up like lizards’ eyes We looked out into rhymed rain We heard varying vowels Rimbaud’s vowels with colors Orange or blue beeps Types of ancient punctuation The interpunct between words A call became twenty-five cents Times in a marriage we went there To complain or flirt Two more decades & we wised up Got used to the shadow The phone booth as reliquary An arm could rest On the triangular shelf A briefcase between the feet A pen poked into acoustic holes While we gathered actions/wits For magic & pain The destiny twins Folks scratched pale glyphs Onto the glass door while talking One day we started to race past & others started racing Holding phones to their ears Holding a personal string To their lips If there are overages There might be nouns for The clotting of numbers in the sky So thick the stars can’t shine through A word for backing away From those who shout to their strings In the airport while eating We loved the half booths Could cup one hand on the mouthpiece Lean two-thirds out to talk to a friend Sitting in the lobby The universe grows We are dizzy as mercury We are solitudes aided by awe Let us mourn secrets told to Fake wood & the trapezoidal seat Perfume in the mouthpiece Like a little Grecian sash Why did we live so fast The booth hid our ankles We twisted the rigid cord As we spoke It made a kind of whorl P H O N E B O O T H ...