The Answer Is No Answer (poem)

The Answer is No Answer

9927 6996 3334 upstairs

Milton the cold caller does better

With notes in his own hand and a pin, a survivor’s pin

To finger and his friend Chalmers

Feels that he will never laugh

Stop this silence, stop it now

Animalist nations, their guns broken open

The dogs so loud, the brushwood flashes bohemian birds

Red-tipped when the otter reappears

A terrible moment of thorns buried along the roadway

A discarded lighter and dumbstruck sons

Of many honed in pink coats, say “hello”, lips an “o”

Pursed where cigarettes and drinking straws

Have been withdrawn

I am sorry about that

Is it all you have to say

“I am sorry about that, sorry.”

But they, are buried like Pompeiians, blanketed by ash

And always their mouths say omission

0087 3334 1200 downstairs

“Really, I only worry about my job.”

Downstairs the house is silent

The Answer Is No Answer

Fill It Up Again

(2016, Stephanie Foster)