making the rounds

I discovered Jeffrey McDaniel from my dear ole pal Eddy this last trip home to Buffalo. I was on a mini-tour de Great Lakes, in search of Library Science grad programs. So, I found myself in great many conversations on the raising societial need for skilled digital sherpas in the information age. I offer up this as inverse mediation on love in such an epoch. McDaniel masters gritty imagery in a conversational style that I’m really quite taken by.

The Quiet World
Jeffrey McDaniel

In an effort to get people to look
into each other’s eyes more,
the government has decided to allot
each person exactly one hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.

When the phone rings, I put it
to my ear without saying hello.
In the restaurant I point
at chicken noodle soup. I am
adjusting well to the new way.

Late at night, I call my long
distance lover and proudly say
I only used fifty-nine today.
I saved the rest for you.

When she doesn’t respond, I know
she’s used up all her words
so I slowly whisper I love you,
thirty-two and a third times.
After that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe.