On Hold

Sara Wallace

the seething, the tired of waiting. While on hold

I’ve graded homework and ordered a pressure cooker.

I’ve watched the box of window lighten

from a dark-undereye-circles navy to indifferent grey

to the faded blue of a vein seen through skin.

I’ve watched the sun pulse through the glass

in a hot white column, throwing its fire

that never burns on the hair-fuzzed floorboards,

bedazzling the small spiderweb built

between the leaves of an unstirred houseplant—

a reminder that an uncaring index finger can poke

into the center of anything and rend it apart forever,

not just a spiderweb or my molars,

but paper, ink, the mix tape I made

my now ex-husband when we were eighteen

and both still virgins, or the small crazy quilt

made of batik and velvet and gold-threaded fancywork

my aunt made for my teenager before he was born.

Before she died of bone cancer her fingernails

grew too thick to trim—yellow, ridged and curved under—

even though her bones were so soft she couldn’t stand.

Even this music I’m hearing—this song by a dead man—

has been played so much it’s like listening to grey ash falling

after the forest of an entire state has burned.

Why am I waiting, anyway?

I called for an answer and it’s giving me one.