Saturday, February 4, 2012


“Call Me Back” © Mike Absalom

Vera Verrina,
it may be that your memories or me
are something not at all to do with my memories of you.

When I spoke my name you cut me off.
I remember that sharp guillotine click, like a neck breaking.
And then the cold, cold silence
with the undertones of
a black hole in space.

When I spoke my name -(or was it your name I spoke that
time?)
there was no pause.
You severed the connection
with one sweep of your razor sharp memory.

Without realisation, I remained standing, just for a moment,
like the blustering target of a Samurai swordsman
before he takes note that he has been amputated,
permanently, at the throat.

Afterwards I could not disconnect that click.
Such a cordless slap across my face
would ring out for years in the unmerciful darkness of
summer nights
like an unattended burglar alarm on somebody else's store.

But then, though still amazed at the brutality
of the severance pay-back,
I came to realize upon severe reflection,
that thirty one years was perhaps too great a lapse
for the survival of a relationship
based on romantic
memories.

I should really have called you back
in 1968.

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