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Miriam N. Kotzin
The Callers
I
I
couldn't
place the voice
he
knew my
secret name
the
color
of my room
the
pattern on the walls
he
knew
everything
and
he
promised
my
parents
gone from the house
he
knew I
was alone
and
the
windows open
the
summer
heat
and
the
screen doors to catch
whatever
breeze
and
his
voice so soft
with
promise
and
he
said to meet him
at
the
corner in ten minutes
calling
me
softly again
and
again
showing how well
he
knew my
secret name.
II
He
had
been by for my roommate
whose
giggles filled the room with suds.
I
was
clever and silent while he tried
to
ferret
it out until the night
when
I was
alone and he called
to
tell me
everything
he
had
known all along
how
to
call me by name
softly
unbuttoning
his
voice
was the heat and the breeze
I
did just
what he said.
III
Night
after night his calls
rocked
us
to terror
he
knew
what the directory omitted
he
told me
my husband's secret name
he
tried
with his laughter
to
weave
my dreams into new patterns.
He
left me
his number.
Now
I
barely remember his voice.
I
wrote
nothing down.
I do
not
intend to call him back. |
| Miriam N. Kotzin
teaches creative writing and literature at Drexel University in
Philadelphia,
PA. Her work has appeared in such as Boulevard,
Southern Humanities Review, Mad
Poets Review, Mid- American Review, Confrontation and Iron Horse Literary Review
and online has appeared or is forthcoming in The Vocabula Review, ForPoetry,
Small Spiral Notebook, Word Riot and Xaxx. email: M.K.Kotzin |
09-04
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