knowing your place

I’m asleep when he calls. And there’s a certain static to his voice. A charge that lights me up. Fills me with a panic like spilling cheap red wine. As he talks, I realize that somehow I’ve let the day slip into night. Stolen these hours from myself. He describes the way he feels about Sharon. Brings the blood closer to the skin. Makes the ears ache. He thinks about her all the time. And I grip the phone harder when he says that she loves him. Don’t ask any questions. Close my eyes and wonder. What’s a girl called Sharon got to do with this anyway? I tell him I have to go after only a few minutes when I realize that, mostly, I haven’t been listening. But he won’t hang up the line until I promise to come see him in December. And afterward I’m filled with a general ache. With the desire to bite down on something hard. Maybe it is all possible. Maybe I’ll never know.