Paul Ilechko
Problematic Dial Tone
His phone she could not help but think
had a particularly annoying ringtone
but she said nothing afraid of the possible
consequences instead she began to keep
her distance drifting further and further
into a space of her own a space that only
contained herself and certain ideas that came
with depressing frequency clogging up
the pathways of a brain that might perhaps
have been more judiciously employed
but this is not a mystery she meant him
no harm as the more remote she became
the less she considered him at all and when
he spoke to her his voice seemed to come
from an ever-greater distance a faint
and muffled clicking that she need not pay
attention to he went out like the tide
under the influence of a warrior moon
and never returned or so it seemed to her
when in fact he continued to live his life
as always and she was the one who retreated
until the town where he lived appeared
to be a collection of dollhouses a mysterious
Legoland of plastic blocks organized
into specified domains surrounding her
on all sides as she searched and searched
again for whatever truth it was that she had
removed herself from once and for all time.
