Cradle

Mike Bell/ September 7, 2016/ www.mikebellpoems.com/ 0 comments

Speaking with my mother,
after phone disconnections,
not-getting-throughs,
and of unreturned calls;

then, again, her anger rises,
a spiked, child-sick bile,
reflux-like, but not mine,
still before we stop talking

I tell her I love her,
but I am once more muted
by the receiver’s placement
on her telephone’s cradle