I miss pay phones, booths in the desert
when the dust blows as certain as any compass
pointing north. There’s the long blonde
in a beehive, in a baby blue Thunderbird
top down calling for a tow,
calling for gas, calling for any voice
like cool water anywhere that might love her.
I drove all the way to New Mexico to find
a phone that played our song in dimes,
thick nickels, quarters without states.
I keep just missing the blonde
now in sunglasses sequined for travel,
white scarf triangled thinly under her chin.
She only deals in travel on empty roads
towards a horizon holding more
than the sum of her past.
I am hampered by markets selling
orange fruit and silver earrings,
by Raul in white linen smoking
his slender cigarillo,
by children and skinny yellow dogs with eyes
of lost souls and no spare change.
I hear a phone ringing through my body like electricity.
As long as I don’t answer,
I can believe it is you.
Intuition tells me it’s the voice of the blonde
cool like water,
adjusting her rearview mirror to reflect
only stillness in the wide and empty sky.