Every Phone Booth a Wind Phone, Every Window a Portal
by Amy Jean Bailey

Yesterday in the yard
I felt the tickle of Fall— 
the warm hair, cold nose— 
and I thought, I should call Mom.
Of course, I don’t have
a phone to call ghosts,
but there’s one in Japan— 
a Wind Phone— 
a push-button phone
nestled in a booth
in a garden at the foot
of Kujira-yama,
the Mountain of the Whale,
where you can hold
the receiver to your face,
and with no response, speak
to your beloved dead.
All phone booths
could be shrines now, to days
when our words cost quarters,
or, of course, a portal
for superheroes and British wizards.
Was the backyard a portal too,
just for a minute?
Did the shift of seasons
open a window?
Hello? I’m saying as I lean out,
palms on the ledge, yellow
curtain pushed aside,
with just a small echo
bouncing back from the asphalt,
and maybe a siren,
the lonesome call of a seagull.

CLOCKHOUSE Volume Thirteen