SouthShoreNow.ca

Phone survey

Carole Glasser Langille
From:   Late In A Slow Time. Mansfield Press, 2003.

We're doing a phone survey, asking

average people like yourself, attractive, cynical, smart, etc., 

people who cook with garlic, who, if married, 

it's not the first time. People who have had 

two or more jobs in the last three years. 

We want to know what your preferred response is

when you hear, 

if in fact you do hear, 

the voices. Shall I clarify? 

Voices that converse

on the great unhappiness and failure 

that is yours. How often 

would you swear you're not drunk, no, 

but the trees are swaying. We're calling to ask

if you ever get confused and mistake

the swaying of trees for the lapping of water, 

until you can't get your bearing. Is that when

the voices advise you, smooth

as a nail going in? Are there certain words that, 

can I say, sneak in from behind, know all 

the back entrances? Would you agree 

the secret of their strength 

is that they will not let you give in

to your hunger? How often 

all you've said and all you've done, torn

like meat from a bone. Is that when you go out, walk

past lighted windows? Go to a movie? Have a coke? 

Or do you hang around,    drift off

till the voices wake you with a jolt or slap: "Payback time." 

Like a street person in front of a diner, begging for change, 

who will not let you go in and get your lousy cup of coffee 

though the sign on the diner flashes: OPEN ALL NIGHT. 

Are the voices familiar with, say, 

streets you walked as a kid, 

torn signs, dead trees? 

We're asking if the voices, now or in the past, 

have ever told you that you have to go back

to the path by the precipice. Because that is your path. 

Would you mind answering? Or am I interrupting something? 

Shall I call back later? What time would be best?