The phone

1

I leave the phone on overnight

To listen to the emptying network.

I drive away the clinging, pleasant sleep,

My hand on the chair back like a whip.

I hope you'll call today,

That you'll impetuously tear through

The veil of silence without effort, scatter the hush,

Though rivers, cities lie between us.

I force the phone to clearly

Catch signals from slumbering worlds.

Perhaps it will find your voice,

And the cover of attentiveness will warm us.

My device betrays me with its silence,

Going limp, I yawn every moment.

Suddenly I observe a surrogate —

A phantom has arisen in the next room:

You are wordless and tense,

Your serene gaze fixed on a corner.

The darkness is shamelessly poor in sounds,

Has dressed the world in tranquility's attire.

2

Lazily, in solitude, I weave

Elegant compliments' nonsense.

I try to find a rhyme on the fly,

But the pull towards the bed grows stronger.

The amiable monologue fades,

The high-flown style breaks.

My eyes stick shut, I can't see the lines,

The very last deadline passed long ago

To be heard. But I stubbornly wait.

And hold the wordless receiver

Close to me. I am a guard dog,

Now affectionate, kind, then suddenly angry,

As if in a dusty kennel,

I pace the apartment on a cord,

Catching my mistress's first call,

But there is no summons! Anxious, I don't sleep,

Not transgressing the inner law —

To wait for the phone to awaken.

The night's repose is filled to the brim

With the monotonous ticking of the clock…