The Call

by Martin Vest

The Call

When the phone rang
I answered
and heard the news
of your death.
And the first person
I wanted to call
was you, of course,
to tell you that
someone we loved
had taken his life.

You had no doubt
visited the woods,
had chosen the tree,
picnicked beneath it
even, drank and
swooned, had come
to know its birds.

And then the end
of your rope —
all the old agonies you
could never express
cinched in the duffel
you had made
of your throat —
hung in mother
nature’s arms
like a sick pietá,
explicit and final,
your phone
a lost detail
in the dark
understory,
ringing and
ringing