If Sylvia Had Answered the Phone

after Dr. Hook’s “Sylvia’s Mother”

There’s a payphone by the station wall,

where mercy takes small change.

He feeds the coins like rosary beads,

and waits for her to breathe.

The rain has learned his name by now.

The glass remembers his face.

He’s ready to hear her mother’s voice -

but it isn’t her mother.

It’s her.

And the world stops rehearsing its sadness.

She says his name

as though it still belongs to her.

The wires between them

tighten like a prayer.

He tells her he’s been faithful

to the sound of rain on metal.

She says she never stopped listening

for that same sound.

There’s a silence after that -

the kind that kneels beside a bed

and waits for someone to speak of love

without asking for forgiveness.

“Are you happy?” he asks.

“I am what I chose,” she says.

And he believes her.

That’s the hardest part.

The train calls her name

the way a church bell calls a saint.

She says she must go.

He says nothing.

When the line goes dead

it isn’t death -

it’s benediction.

He steps into the rain,

hands empty, heart unburdened.

Somewhere a window opens.

Somewhere a woman breathes.

And the payphone,

bright with rain,

starts to sing.

GBS

2023