Summer Between Seventh and Eighth Grade
I never liked the phone, the tin
and tone of voice, the slap of silence,
clamp of air when someone
called out It’s for you. I can still
hear the girl who’d best-friended
me, her voice soft as glitter, sweet
as night falling to stars smothered
beyond fog. Her words, not quite
a quiet whip, but a rope intended
to tie like wire and air. She listed
friends as unchecked squares
on a multi-choice test. She multiplied
her choices, any of the above. Even
now, the phrase you rang, still used
by my mother, replays like a song
stale with time. My friend said
she’d chosen everyone except me.
*
T. R. Poulson, a University of Nevada alum, currently lives in San Mateo, California. She supports her poetry habit by working as a UPS driver in Woodside. Her stories and poems have appeared or are forthcoming in various publications including Best New Poets, Booth, Rattle, and Gulf Coast. Find her at trpoulson.com.
Ouch. I have been thinking a lot about that time (both in terms of junior high/adolescence and that era of the telephone) and this captures the cruelty so well.