LANDLINE
It weighed about twelve pounds
My brother swung the receiver
Like a baseball bat
And its green color was all the rage
When Jimmy Carter was president
It sat on our dining room table
Waiting for my grandmother
To talk with her commare
In a language we didn’t share
Grandma-secret-agent-speak
Once a week my aunt would
Panic call. I’d feel her panting
Through the earpiece, Put
Your mother on
Her daughter ran away again
Dinnertime was sacred. Mom would chide
Chew with your mouths closed
Dad two-tapped his cigarette in the ashtray
And if that phone let out its strident shrill
He’d slam his fist on the table and make the salt shaker yelp.
I could never untangle
All the knots in the stubborn cord
Its twisted jumble always yanking me back
As I chatted and stretched to the freezer
Pining for a pint of rocky road
Finally, I had one in my bedroom
Talking for hours with my boyfriend, dreading
The click of the downstairs line
My father interrupting
Five more minutes
After Nonna passed
The clunky contraption was replaced
By one on the wall
When my brother moved out
We got a cordless, then a cell
But there’s still a tender thrill
When I remember that old phone
Like the giddy mess of a banana split
Or the sweet voice, trembling through the static
Of a first love
Bio:
Maria Ceferatti is a music teacher in the Philadelphia area and she received her MFA in Creative Writing from Rosemont College. Her previous work has been published in Apiary Magazine, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Paterson Literary Review, The Best of Philadelphia Stories and is forthcoming from Hippocampus Magazine.
OVUNQUE SIAMO 