Jenny, Jenny, by Robert L. Dean, Jr.

jenny, jenny, by Martha Wherry (USA). 2018.

Jenny, Jenny

I’m still here, waiting
for this phone to ring,
a blast from the past,
though we’ve been
disconnected for so long

the phone company has repossessed the cord and even if
I knew your number now and stuck my index finger in

the holes above those
big black numbers 1-0 and spun
the dial, the handful of receiver
to my ear, you wouldn’t
answer, no signal

can possibly reach you, breach the distance
of the years, let me hear your voice again, I

have to be content with
the yellow of this desk top
reminding me of your hair

on that summer day we spent at—where was it, Jenny,
oh, where was it? Please call, Jenny. I’m up against

that metal thing
that stops the dial from
spinning, spinning, spinning
and I don’t know how long
it’s going to hold--

Robert L. Dean, Jr.

Robert L. Dean, Jr.'s work has appeared in Flint Hills Review, I-70 Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Illya’s Honey, Red River Review, River City Poetry, Heartland!, and the Wichita Broadsides Project. He read at the 13th Annual Scissortail Creative Writing Festival in April 2018 at East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma. His haibun placed first at Poetry Rendezvous 2017. He was a quarter-finalist in the 2018 Nimrod Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry contest. He has been a professional musician and worked at The Dallas Morning News. He lives in Augusta, Kansas.