Through Glass, Wired

Words slide across the glass;
frostings of consonants and vowels.
His lips move but she can’t hear him
until she holds the phone to her ear.

It’s sticky with desperate sweat
of lovers and families torn apart;
of scarred friendships coming to an end;
of nervous, dutiful visitations.

She feels all this in the seconds
it takes to lift the handset to her face.
She wants to say she’s sorry
but when she thinks about it,
she is secretly happy to see him this way.
Maybe in here, he’ll learn
he can’t use his fists to make a point
or win an argument.

But she knows he blames everything else
when is it simply his lack of control at fault.