'Should I Pick Up Chinese?'
The Call
Calling off was never your thing.
Each day you left for dawn, did
the drive
though things have been tense
I called today on your sick day.
Week by week my schedule
was the same, leave at four
home in 20,
like clockwork.
Sure and dependable.
Tonight, if you could eat,
I'd bring Chinese?
Your favorite.
No chicken soup for you.
No.
Just come home.
Call over.
Line dead.
That waxy landline receiver
kinked to the wall in a dirty wire spiral
still at my ear.
Hands like ice,
breath stoppered behind my lips.
For twenty six years we spoke
on the phone
plans made
secrets shared
tears and love
now frozen and cold cold cold.
Still,
tears of ice burned my eyes
scalded my cheeks.
They knew what I didn't.
The caw-caw-caw of the broken connection
in my ear urged me to do it.
You were already gone.
The leaving completed once the phone was cradled.
But in the moment
you could still love me,
In this moment we were still us.
In this paper-strewn backroom
we were talking until I hung up.
I could sign out and
get Chinese on the way home.
We won't need fortune cookies.
No need to read ahead in this story.
About the Creator
Judey Kalchik
It's my time to find and use my voice.
Poetry, short stories, memories, and a lot of things I think and wish I'd known a long time ago.
You can also find me on Medium
And please follow me on Threads, too!
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