Signal Loss

The radiator is finally quiet,

so I sit on the porcelain edge of the tub,

listening to the plumbing’s internal riot

and the distant sound of a neighbor’s sub.

She said, "The doctor called about the slide,"

and then her voice went thin, then hollow, then gone.

I’m left with the half-sentence she tried

to stretch across the miles until the dawn.

Call Failed. The screen is a flat, bright blue

reflected in the sink’s stagnant pool.

It’s amazing how little a signal can do

when the world is being exceptionally cruel.

I stare at the black rectangle in my palm,

waiting for the bars of light to climb back up.

There is no reception in this sudden calm,

just the drip of a faucet into a plastic cup.