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Pocket Dial
Cell phone pocket dials daughter
sleeping with boyfriend, pre-dawn.
Crickets, truck banging around, cell phone
doesn’t dial cranky
exuberant Mrs. Deemer, or the
bus driver
from Special Olympics. My Dad is gone
but still on the phone.
My sister found U. S. Savings Bonds
grandparents sent us,
the note says, “We are proud of the
young man you have become.”
Hard to dial up the sound of their voices,
even in dreams
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Chris Mason’s most recent books and chapbooks include Something Something Morning (Blabbermouth, 2020), Some of the Methods of Performing Poetry Employed in and Around Baltimore from the Late 60’s to the Early Teens by Poets in Their Late Teens to Early 60’s (Primary Writing, 2019), and Hum Who Hiccup (Narrow House, 2011). He is a member of 3 bands: The Tinklers, Coocoo Rockin Time, and Old Songs. The Old Songs group translates archaic Greek poetry and puts it to music. He lives in Baltimore with his wife, Ann.
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