PEOPLE I TELEPHONE Poem by Harkaitz Cano

There are people you once adored and
that you now call only on their birthday.
People you call to fume about work and ask for favors.
A fool from the department who calls you
to measure your failure: ‘not I, but he... never'
There are people you call only when your wife has left you
(and who call you only when their husband has left them).
There are people you wouldn't call so much if they were closer.
There are people you call to demand an explanation,
who call you to scold.
There are people who call once every four years
who warm your spirit and make you feel
they are with you, cheek to cheek, soul to soul.
There are calls that are desert mirages,
failed advertising: would you be interested in, you've won a.
There are people - ‘I'll call you right back' -
who always have someone more important on the other line,
and then they don't call back.
There are people you call so you won't have to buy them a whiskey
and then the call costs more than the drink.
There are people you can't call, because they're mad at you,
or they're in jail, or they've forgotten you, or they're dead; it's a drag.
There are people who all too clearly pick their nose
while they talk to you.
There are people who never answer the phone
but who are always there counting the rings in a dark room,
or who, champagne in hand,
swallow a grape with each ring.
There are people who never call you
because they know someone else might answer.
There are people who call you to get together,
and people whose way of getting together
is talking on the phone.
There are those who call you every month on the thirteenth,
with a trace of esoteric melancholy perhaps.
Those you call to confirm what you already know.
Those you call to contradict you.
Those you start to call but never remember
the last digit of their number.

And then there are those like you,
people I call only rarely:
to call a truce perhaps, or break one,
or when it's snowing outside
just to say, ‘now what?'
or ‘is it snowing there too?'
and you say, ‘yes, it is'.