WHEN THE NEW PHONE SYSTEM CRASHES AT THE FUNERAL HOME

Hello? Someone’s trying to reach us.
The walls vibrate with ringing phones
carrying messages that miss us.

Since we cannot answer, we fuss
and press our strained ears to dial tone,
yet someone’s trying to reach us.

Hours pass and I’m still nonplussed
by these bells like bumblebees that drone
carrying messages that miss us.

When mourners dial the phone, they trust
we’ll answer and compassion will be shown
to anyone desperate trying to reach us.

Without working phones, we must
rely on the older obits already known.
The lines carry messages that miss us.

The tech arrives offering the coup de grâce:
lock the doors and unplug the useless phones. 
No one’s ever trying to reach us—
their messages weren’t meant for us. 

Cat Dixon is the author of What Happens in Nebraska (Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2022) along with six other poetry chapbooks and collections. She is a poetry editor with The Good Life Review. Recent poems published in The Literary Underground, Nude Bruce, and The Rye Whiskey Review. She works full-time at a funeral home and teaches creative writing part-time at the University of Nebraska, Omaha.