William Olsen Phone Book It is all reasonable
and unreasonable
inside this book I understand
just about as well as I do my body—
it’s not dust yet.
I look both ways
crossing its streets, its stricken pages,
almost by heart.
Its nighthawks—
that’s how edgy the body sounds
when it flies
between buildings.
If only for night yellow streetlights
come on, stay lit,
like need on a face,
lamp on this book. Across the street
fog-light rolls
looking both ways
like I do when I turn the pages,
lifetimes roll,
everyone is here,
anyone can see the barbershops
are closed for the day—
the dark mirrors,
faceless as fears, staring as if alive—
the rotating thrones,
resolute steel,
look royally lost. More pages turn,
on every last one
are addresses
to tell me where all the others are—
alphabetized names—
families rhyme
yet perhaps not one knows another.
There turn the motels,
there the car lots,
clean restaurants on yellow pages,
lamp on a place,
leaves on the night,
wind in the leaves. In the fearless book
of fears what rolls
over rolls over by heart,
the unstaunched stop light turns
emerald by heart,
everyone is on
their way home or away from home,
everyone knows
just how far from
the beginning we are, streets of emptiness,
streets of business,
our little universe.
This book can’t take us anywhere but here,
this scrawny sky
nighthawks scrawl.
Not one cry has to be reminded to carry.
Every street’s here.
Thunderous trucks.
Our and every face and name and number,
every call and voice,
every untold house,
every phantom grace.
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