Dime Call
by Albert Goldbarth
Dead Jews, dead Jews, just points now an underground
telephone cable runs through. When I dial my
father up, his father, long gone, jolts in the
earth between us. — Picture an archaeologist,
unaware of that skeleton shocked to
life by my dime call. But
I believe the fathers have something
to say. And I believe
in the archaeologist, ear to ground
and eye sun-thin
through his lens, translating the many
dead tongues.
Like the phone
on the wall, black box
with its message . . . I'm going
to tie these phylacteries
till my head rings,
till they tell me.
From A Lineage of Ragpickers, Songpluckers, Elegiasts
& Jewelers: Selected Poems of Jewish Family Life 1973–1995 by Albert
Goldbarth. Copyright © 1996 by Time Being Books. Reprinted courtesy of
Time Being Press.
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