The Call by Kim Addonizio

That's a photo of my bedroom where I've been hiding, crying, shaking my fist at god and cursing the motherfucking incompetent surgeon who crippled me---surrounded by my books, cats and dragonflies. My books speak to me and comfort me. My cats purr and comfort me. My dragonflies look down at me and comfort me. My painting of my dead 20 year old cat on the wall comforts me. Ray tucks my blankets under my feet and comforts me. My prayers hit the ceiling and bounce back on my head giving me headaches. I read poetry, cry and adjust my heating pad and add more blankets, drink more water so I can cry more futile tears. I'm a fucking broken fountain in a town with no plumber. I'm reading Kim Addonizio off and on, one of my favorite poets, so hence, her poem below. The pages of her books are now salty and crinkled and water-warped......Life is not always what it seems, no?



THE CALL
By: Kim Addonizio


A man opens a magazine,
women with no clothes,
their eyes blacked out.
He dials a number,
hums a commercial
under his breath. A voice
tells him he can do
anything he wants to her.
He imagines standing her
against a wall, her saying
Oh baby you feel so good.
It's late. The woman
on the phone yawns,
trails the cord to the hall
to look in on her daughter.
She's curled with one
leg off the couch.
The woman shoulders the receiver,
tucks a sheet and
Yes. Do it. Yes.
She goes to the kitchen,
opens another Diet Pepsi, wonders
how long it will take him and where
she can find a cheap winter coat.
Remembering the bills
she flips off the light.
He's still saying Soon,
turning his wheelchair right,
left, right. A tube runs down
his pants leg. Sometime
she thinks he feels something,
stops talking to concentrate
on movement down there.
Hello, the woman says.
You still on?
She rubs a hand over her eyes.
Blue shadow comes off on her fingers.
Over the faint high hiss
of the open line
she hears the wheels knock
from table to wall.
What's that, she says.
Nothing, he tells her,
and they both
listen to it.



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When you are sorrowful look again in your heart,
and you shall see that in truth you are weeping
for that which has been your delight. ~Kahlil Gibran



I didn't want my picture taken because I was going to cry. I didn't know why I was going to cry, but I knew that if anybody spoke to me or looked at me too closely the tears would fly out of my eyes and the sobs would fly out of my throat and I'd cry for a week. I could feel the tears brimming and sloshing in me like water in a glass that is unsteady and too full. ~Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar