In my hands, lifelines, near palm-width  

picking up the phone 

to tell a friend I’m sorry   

I’m not a phone person. I’ll call,  

but not often. I’ve tried.  

A pencil, strips of notepaper, 

return envelopes I won’t return,  

lists of those I need  

to ring up, working up 

to the phone’s heavy weight,  

checking off one name  

each day.  

In my hands the weight  

of not living up  

to the outgoing need  

of me.  

In my hands polished glass,  

green, icy-blue, 

the ocean smoothed  

of edges jagged as mine.   

In my hands, sea water,  

until it slips between my fingers,  

when I reach down for more       

of what I have not worked for,    

wading in tide pools,  

in deepening water 

miles from a phone,  

from the call  

about my mother,  

knowing she’d never again  

comb the wet sand,        

carry driftwood home  

to put on the shelf 

above the only phone we had.