Poetry

Early Morning Call

John Upton

 

Six-thirty phone ringing like an ambulance.
Three years divorced, she’s speaking up the line
Sorry it’s early—I waited. I’m masked and wary:
our passion ambushed by the nine to five,
all roads led to the unregistry office.
Accident now, gravel, car flipped in ditch.
She was beside the driver. The death seat.
My mind draws breath.
Seat belts saved them, no-one hurt, police dropped her home,

she watched the sun rise, a red ball of life;
ringing to let me know, as I’ll probably hear.
Suddenly as she talks, an unspoken island
of feeling, back before the morass.
Not reviving anything—too much water under those bridges—

but an epiphany: the passion, the wonder
those first days
quick and holy.
I’m politely sympathetic. We hang up.
The scorched earth hasn’t been revegetated,
but the world has altered.
I’m a little more whole.