Amnesia

by Lori Hershberger

The past has a phone in a farmhouse
A yellow rotary phone, hanging on its kitchen wall;
Its cord loops down like coiled springs,
Its faded yellow smudged with fingerprints.

When I call the past, only the echoes answer;
They tell me stories I’ve forgotten,
And sing me songs, songs that hum through my bones,
Songs that stay me to the earth.

I am afraid someday the echoes will not answer,
That the phone will ring and ring in the empty farmhouse,
The sound bouncing off the walls until an automated voice says,
The number you have dialed is no longer in service.

I will be left floating in the gray static air
Between two spinning worlds, grasping for the looping cord,
My voice fading in and out, frantically repeating hello, hello,
To a world receding behind a darkened, dusty glass.

Lori Hershberger lives in Mae Hong Son Province, Thailand, where she teaches EFL and dreams of traveling across the Salawin River into Burma. You can find her book, Dustbeams, on Amazon.

Photography by Kenneth Godoy