phatic

the meadowlark has one job

and takes it seriously —

hawk. here. mine. now.

prairie dogs run a tighter newsroom

than anything on cable:

predator, tall, moving fast,

coming from the east.

every syllable load-bearing.

nothing wasted. nobody

out there on the fencepost

workshopping a metaphor.

and then there’s us.

I have personally spent

forty-five minutes on the phone

discussing whether a guy we knew

in 1987 was more of a Ferris

or a Cameron.

I have said

“how about this weather”

to a man I will never see again,

both of us knowing the weather

was doing what weather does,

neither of us needing

the information.

the biological term is phatic —

sound that carries nothing

but the sound itself,

a hand kept on the wire

just to feel the other end.

which is, when you think about it,

the entire architecture of falling

for someone.

not one thing

she said to me that first year

would have helped me survive

a single night outdoors.

no warnings. no coordinates.

just hours of magnificent

nonsense, the two of us

burning daylight and long distance

saying nothing, which was

the only thing

that needed saying.

even this. especially this —

a poem about unnecessary words

made entirely out of them,

forty lines to deliver

zero survival value.

the meadowlark would be appalled.

but tonight she’ll tell me

something about her day

that changes nothing,

and I’ll answer with something

that changes less,

and the room will hold it

the way air holds birdsong —

no hawk anywhere.

just the call,

and the answer,

which is how our species says

still here.