I can't stand calling you
although
I ring every week


I swallow my tongue
to stop the words
from tumbling as they sometimes do


You never change
age or
alter your singsong acceptance

And I'm hiding emotion
in drivel
slipping uncontested
simulacrums of affection
between the inflection
and discussions of the mundane.

Yet
beneath the sighed intonation
of your ho-hum
there lies the core
superheated
lava liquid and indented with
a billion years of pressure
pushing against
above below
until we can both see the crushed remnant
for what it really is

And what is it really?

I don't forget my sweet friend
I don't ignore
or become blasé'

You are murmuring platitudes
till I lie and sign off with
some imaginary chore
to run/do/execute

Until the next time
I am loathe to call

perhaps Tuesday?

good

talk then....