In the junk shop window it sat

In the junk shop window, it sat,

yellowed plastic, a forgotten god.

That rotary phone.

Not mine, never mine,

but it hummed with some old memory

I didn't own.

The finger holes,

deep and dark,

like a map to a place

no one visits anymore.

That heavy clunk as the dial spun,

the slow, deliberate return.

Now just dust on the receiver,

a long, tangled cord

like a snake asleep.

No voice could get through it now.

No urgent news.

Just silent, heavy, obsolete.

An anchor to a world

that spun too slow to save itself.