i am waiting for change
as the bells of the abbey blow across centuries/
as smoke fills the nostrils/
as lake ontario rolls over and plays dead/
i am waiting to make a telephone call
with a dime that will never work
and still not understanding how wires
spank the sky/
how any mountain will
never fall down/
how snow rests in a
garbage can but melts on
the pavement.
and i am waiting at this truck stop
for you to phone me as we both
look for coins in hands that are gas tanks apart/
and with eight cents left in my pocket
and the sky singing everyone’s name but yours
i’m wondering, at last, how you
can appear so incredibly beautiful
and me, so incredibly far away/
Livio Farallo is co-founder and co-editor of Slipstream, currently in its 43rd year of operation, publishing general poetry and art works, single-author works, and themed poetry and art works. He is Professor of Biology at Niagara County Community College in Sanborn, New York and his work has appeared or is forthcoming, in North Dakota Quarterly, Cordite Review, Triggerfish, Panoplyzine, Adelaide Lit. Mag., J Journal, and elsewhere.