Please Write: don't phone

Please Write: don't phone
- Robert Watson

While there is mail there is hope.
After we have hung up I can't recall
Your words, and your voice sounds strange
Whether from a distance, a bad cold, deceit
I don't know.

When you call I'm asleep
Or bathing or my mouth is full of toast.
I can't think of what to say, "We have rain"? "We have snow"?

Let us write instead: surely our fingers spread out
With pen and paper touch more of mind's flesh
Than the sound waves moving from throat to lips
To phone, through wire, to one ear.

I can touch the paper you touch.
I can see you undressed in your calligraphy.
I can read you over and over
I can read you day after day.
I can wait at the mailbox with my hair combed,
In my best suit.

I hang up. What did you say? What did I say?
Your phone call is gone.
I hold the envelope you addressed in my hand.
I hold the skin that covers you.