Cora Hyatt

Dusk

Sundown in East Berlin
and I am feeding dirty coins
into a Münzfernsprecher -
my Midwestern accent turns the syllables
into four separate words.

Your number burned into
the back of my skull,
the dial tone lasts an eternity.

With it,
I count on my fingers
the things I like about you,
and what I don’t,
I leave in the pauses between.

I’m wanting to tell you about yesterday,
how I cried about all the people
I could be in love with, but am not,
about the lover I am still writing prose for,
whether he reads it or not.

Maybe I’d tell you how I finally learned
the difference between guilt and shame -
the way they burn different
I wonder what lies you want
and if I’d tell them.

The call drops
and the ruminations vanish.
It’s been years, anyways,
your number’s probably changed.