- Keith Banner
Wrong Number
wrong number
but there's quince jam
but there's apricot and strawberry
jam
he didn't want to see them
anyway; he
only wanted to know
it was worth it
hidden away
behind bath-towels
inside a potted plant
inside a fitted sheet
his face to his mother
was a christmas wreath; to his
father a stern kernel of popcorn
it's all what we want to see
it's
never what it is
they took 10 jars of jam
to the psychiatric facility
and he had tried to kill himself
there, their only son,
perfectly fine now but solidly asleep,
but they were not
about to leave all
that jam for him,
no way
the nurses would eat it
the orderlies
too
so they take it home
his mother and his father
and then the phone rings
wrong number
suddenly
the father feels
the jam's midnight presence
in a corner
those luminous colors
rubies
sapphires
emeralds
it is all sugar and it is all
fruit
the world
is a color
you need the world is
just a jar
(after "Signs and Symbols" by Vladimir Nabokov)
