before I was born
my parents queued
in front of the PCO
on half-price sundays
to call back home.
first, they'd ring up
the neighbor's landline
tell her they'll call again
in ten minutes.
*
he: do you like her?
me: what is she called?
he: you mean, what is her name
me: something like that, yeah
body is a name
a string of sounds
a bag of bones
a centipede's dilemma -
it analyzed its walk
& was baffled
so it tripped
& fell.
words fell over his lower lip :
what did the doctor say?
me: she said it was nothing
serious. just skin eczema.
eczema, that sounds sexy.
& witzelsucht
as summarized by a team
of taiwanese researchers
is marked by a tendency
to tell inappropriate
& poor jokes.
me: really, that's her name?
he: yeah
me: that sounds like a pokémon
he: yeah.
*
in ten minutes
my grandparents mothed
around the landline, waiting.
maybe, I was there, then
requeuing, in my mother's arms
or on my father's shoulders.
maybe, I could not make sense
of the sounds & how they
had anything to do with the tears
longing, distance.
the sound of distance
is a decibel higher
than silence.
maybe that's why
I existed myself
after that hello.
~Ajay
22/10/2019
YOU ARE READING
bliss station ~ poetry
Poetry~ where is your bliss station / you have to try to find it ~
