When You Call

I am usually holed up in my room with a CD on, so I didn’t even know the phone rang
until there’s a knock on my door and I pause in the middle of a song
which is mostly annoying
and sometimes excruciating
because I like to listen to albums the whole way through
and you know that.

But I pick the phone from my mother’s fingers and
I know it’s you already
because no one else ever calls me
unless they want something.
And even though I want to listen to the CD
(like I have hundreds of times since last November)
we end up talking for at least twenty minutes
and usually more.
Because talking about things we’ve discussed too many times
is never boring
and I will always laugh at your stories about
the podcast you get and the book that you’re reading.
Your sister always makes you get off the phone
because she has to call someone now
and that is how all our conversations end,
so I go back to my favorite CD.

And when it’s all over I get up only to put on
their second album;
and that one reminds me of drinking tea at your house
when you finally got it in the mail
and I’d had my copy for days even though you told me months before
when I pre-ordered it that I would get it late but I
already had all the words memorized by the time it was
snowy enough in April to drink tea

And that’s the CD we skipped track four on
when we were driving to Portland with your mom
even though she couldn’t hear
the words up front through our chatter –
but we weren’t taking any chances that day
with the music we would soon hear live
and to be honest, track four was the best part of the concert
and I know you secretly agree even though you blush
and won’t admit that during those riffs, the no-space-for-real-dancing
was slightly more appealing than
being holed up in your room with the bass turned up.