Picking up the phonebook I think
of the contacts at my fingertips,
how right now I could just
buzz the Governor
to chat interchange progress
or talk to the guy in work clothes
and no teeth who sweeps
the parking lot at work.

A thousand delicate pages,
a bible,
a testament
to our numbers' strength.
How the height of our names
raises children
to our tables.
How the weight of them is enough
to keep even paper
from blowing away.

Searching for my own
I find name after name rising
above my fingertip,
each with his or her number,
street, hometown...
memorial to a war
of communication.
Phonebooks and phones
only seconds away
in hospitals, homes, garages,
it is remarkable how closely we hold
the dead.

From breath to transducer our voices,
Synapsed,
less impulse,
than the noise of intelligence.
Our thoughts lifted
to satellite orbit
and shifted any number of degrees
( st
ill thereis distortion - you can't
see what i mean )

A single message comes down
toward a frog's egg nest
matrix of bubbles,
each with a tiny black spot,
a receiver,
a cord.