Praise to the old phones in their heavy black formal wear, their Bakelite or nickel skins;

two-fisted candlestick phones, wall phones with twin bells like warrior-woman breast cups –

their many-eyed dials, hooking the numbers in sweeps: static, wrong numbers, busy signals, phones off their hooks and the ringing without end;

phone booths, space capsules on night-corners; the roomy British booths, wood-paneled train-station booths for last goodbyes;

the angelic operator, Mademoiselle O – so curt and businesslike, yet at times so kind; her lovely unseen face, her syllables of eyes;

old phones with heft! – we did not carry them, but went to them; made furniture for them and placed them in nooks as for idols and icons;

old phone, homunculus, casket or samurai head, your gnomic squat; enormous cartoon phone leaping and shaking with business and passion!

(You, on the other end: I wanted never to leave messages, but only to reach you.)