Down the Phoneline-

My mother read me poetry
as a last resort.

She spoke of snowdrops,
a great white land
of nodding heads on tiny stilts.
she fed them through the mouthpiece
one by one like lines of-

silk white air. My mother told me
about my fathers two left feet,
arms around her waist,
great white flakes,
that melted on their skin.

She eased her way into her beat
and breathed the days in all her weeks
My mother ad-libbed,
tangented,
weaved-

across the wires;
my mother soothed me.
she read me poetry.
I shut my eyes.