day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and FORTY TWO

A Voicemail from Jimmy

I know it will go away one of these days.
But for now, I still have it stashed away.
a voice message from two years ago.
It starts “Scott, this is Jimmy Cvetic.”
Jimmy calling my phone while I was
likely still in bed. Leaving this voicemail
for me, saying, “I wanted to tell you that
I liked your book.” Jimmy saying I have
nice style and saying that word “style”
like Bukowski, his hero. Jimmy says
it’s a good book—“And I’m not saying
this to blow sunshine up your ass, ok?”
he says. Then the message winds down.
I know this old cell phone will one day
delete the voicemail or else not turn on
one morning, but for now I still have this
little bit of sound saved there, this moment
before he was gone. We’ve got his poems
and I have this voicemail. I have it saved.
For now. So that if I want to, I can hear
his voice again—maybe just once more.

--Scott Silsbe