Two lovers talking on the phone at night,
ear pressed to the receiver pressed to ear
for the half-whispering voices that are clearer
for being quiet, more intimate
somehow for being far away. The timbre,
pitch, and exact inflection of who they are
in saying what they want, what they would do
if they were together, has never been
so audible; as if the sheer voice stripped
of body were revealing something about
the nature of their love not just for bodies,
but of his body for hers, and hers for his,
the lovers never more exactly there
though less material, never more held,
more truly clung to than in separation--
I wish I could take you in my mouth right now--
I wish your lips were here--the voices hungry,
ghost-like, and won't it be like this one day,
only the voice returning to the stark bed,
voice rising up from where nobody rises,
your voice or mine, to haunt us tonight
our voices haunt the hand that moves like the lips
that speak the words of what the lips would do?
[Alan Shapiro, from Tantalus in Love
]
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