Answering Machine by Weston Cutter The current of the undulating dark took me— I’m driving, you’re maybe not home. The dim eddies unswirled in effervescence, swelling and stewing, the shore a rolling boil. Tonight the flood crested, a million-fingered saboteur, flinging half dissolved flotsam as a reminder of what won’t last—voices, sentiments starved to impulses, your anger at static. I drive past gas stations and grocery stores, legions lighting out to reign lost shopping carts back in and I want to feel brought back, prodigal but not rescued. Maybe you are home. The stoplights and signs, the curbs, this mutilated path: all this worthless currency. I stop to call, to tell you things are settling, familiarity a lost but always returning pet. I say to breathe then I take a breath and this phone call’s a barter: my night for your machine. © 2001 Weston Cutter. All rights reserved. Home