Magdalena Ball #17: Signal to Noise

Signal to Noise

while ice melts
in the arctic sea
setting new records

I hold a telephone handset
against my jaw
using nothing but
facial muscles
and a hunched shoulder

words come through encoded
action this, deep dive, enablers
voices blurring into
the hum at the back of the line
a growing headache
beneath the socket of my right eye
combines with the hiss of vocals
and awareness of distant danger
as the sound reaches peak abstraction

the words on the line
meld and then break
into phonemes
which dance across the
cold sweat on my arms

it’s like two worlds in co-existence
my body hovering between these
multiple spaces
fragmented into components

I wonder if I’ll ever return
to the conversation