An Unvandalized Love

Pat Galvin
It was nights
when frost glittered on the ground
like bright stars
in a black sky
or wind drove rain against my face
in stinging handfuls
that your voice came through the air
to that one unvandalized telephone box
at the end of the road.
Those nights are forever, our VOICes nng
in unmapped territories though we see only dim-lit booths.
The night I got you
from the shower, goosepimpled, a towel protecting from the cold corridor,
the floor dampening
round your toes
or when crossed-lines
left us in a free zone
with talk of week-ends holidays and a possible lifetime when we would never speak to each other over telephones
and the time our voices met in torrents
of sad frustration,
sense and passion reaching, rising through tiny perforated holes until
there was a linking
of long-distance-Iove
we knew could never
ever be cut off ...
Page 36, Poetry Ireland Review Issue 26