By WYATT TOWNLEY

Not the girl
            after the party
waiting for boy wonder

            Not the couple
after the test
           awaiting word

Not the actor
            after the callback
for the job that changes everything

            Not the mother
on the floor
            whose son has gone missing       

I am the beloved
and you are the beloved

            We’re all beside ourselves
            as the phone is beside ourselves

One hand grips the menu
the other covers the eyes

            Now the phone rings
            it is singing on the table

To the dog across the room
to the waitress who is waiting

            To the cat on the carpet
            to the couple in the next booth

But the heart is in the cupboard
breaking the dishes

[Purchase Issue 30 here.]

Wyatt Townley is poet laureate emerita of Kansas and has published six books. Her work has been read on NPR and has appeared in journals from Newsweek to The Paris Review, and Yoga Journal to Scientific American. Commissioned poems hang in libraries including the Space Telescope Science Institute, home of the Hubble.