They say you eventually get desperate
enough to call a stranger, someone
who’s added her number to a database
for the incarcerated, someone who’s
even more alone than you. It’s amazing,
they say, once you’ve picked a name (other
stats sometimes provided), the numbers
you dial clink like bottles meeting
in a sea. Each distant ring is a pair of whirring
lips held millimeters from that ticklish
spot in the curve of your ear. Will she have the high,
lilting voice and self-possession of the weather
girl on the radio, or will her Hello
scrape and knock like a stone being winched
out of a well? And what do you say when she
actually accepts the call? Is it to her that you admit
you’re not even sure freedom is what
you want anymore? They say not to say
anything, just listen to how sorry
she is about your situation. It’s important
to close your eyes. The breeze she says billows
her bedroom curtains won’t reach you, drunk
on the way by ghosts, but the shiver
you’ll get is, you know, more than you deserve.
Erik Tschekunow, released from prison and repentant, is still searching for the right way to say he’s sorry. His writing has appeared in Poetry, Rattle, and The Freshwater Review. He lives in Minnesota.
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