George Held

ED3-5112

First just 5112: I knew the number well
but feared the phone more than a ghost,
at best would say Hello to Gram in Harrisburg,

a day away by train, if Mom would hold
the receiver (as much a sender) to my ear.
That heavy black tool sat malignant

in its black cradle, the number 5112
printed on a plastic-covered disk
on the heavy black base—Ma Bell as barbell,

I thought, trying to dispel my fear.
There were operators then, even when
I finally screwed up my wits to lift

the receiver for myself and hear Number, ple-ase.
Baseball made me do it—the need to round up
Hal McIntyre and Reuel Smith and all the other

guys for a game at Edgedale field.
Then girls made me do it—the need to quell
my erratic heart, the flutter in my gut,

and dial an ED3 number to hear the trill
of the latest girl who had my number,
waiting while the switching system rolled out

those seven digits so slowly you could almost
count the clicks. How many times did I click
the receiver down in panic, pace the room

and then, after breathing deep, dig my index
finger into those numbered holes and ring again,
furious at this humiliation yet yearning

for the right answer. Now my number’s
eleven digits long, even if you’re also in 212,
and everything’s in the palm

of your hand if not yet on your wrist
like Dick Tracy’s two-way radio.
The operator’s a recorded message

if you misdial; the answer’s a recorded menu.
The heavy graphite receiver and base,
even the rotary dial, have faded like mid-

century, like my memory of all the numbers
now on microchip. Light as a fountain pen,
the whole phone fits in a pocket and has

Caller ID, Call Waiting, Voice Mail
so you’re never out of touch, except, maybe,
with yourself and with a sense of distance

like it used to be for me at five and for Gram
in Harrisburg.

Under the Escalator

I want to go all the way
around on the escalator
to slip under the plate
at the bottom and turn
topsy-turvy in that
chamber below floor
level where it rolls
under itself and climbs
back to the top where
I’ll come out of the
crack under the plate
and start all over again
unless the trolls who
control the machinery
in that chamber under
the floor exact a toll
from me that I can’t
pay, since I’m upside
down and unable to
reach my bills or coin
and they imprison me
in that dark chamber
forever to hear those
metal stairs whine and
those rubber railings
sigh in their grooves
as all the customers
silently, sullenly ride
over me, my screams
drowned out by that
indifferent machinery.