A Connection in a World of Disconnected Connections

Photgraph by Matt Schrier


A Connection in a World of Disconnected Connections



Holding, rubbing between the fingers,
the speared-curved fern leaf.
Caressing
The curves.
The fingers hear
the sound inside the leaves,
and the sounds
have contours.

Wearing heavy rubber gloves and scraping
A finger over the black clothes
of a telephone wire
One feels the conversation inside
and he knows he is touching a ghost

That has no sides, no hips,
and is only a whiff like smoke.


A man works to keep the world connected
with repair of wires
And fails.

The gloves thrown away, the finger rubs down
the back of a fern frond,
And in a world where apparent connections
That are real disconnections,
A connection is made,

And one human being finds a life
that transcends phone calls.

Duane Locke

Posted over on Poetry Repairs