i find whispers in the telephone ring tones
your voice is set to ringing, ‘answer’
and then we lock eyes at odd intervals
(a flat note from a woodwind)
do you see me smiling with someone?
their joke is not funnier than yours
& i can smell you from here.
so flush with a thought of you
capillaries rise, a cut pink
the ideas fixate themselves in front
it’s hard to articulate the very snap
of your skin to your bones or the slow
cook steeping of the tension between