Joe

Abstract

Joe David Moolten (bio) Phone rings. Hello, I say . . . Hello, he says.Can I talk to Joe? Sorry, wrong number, I say,click. Phone rings. Hello, I say . . . Joe? he says.No, sorry, I say, click. Phone rings. Wars start this way,reproducibly accurate fuck-ups. Hello, I say . . .Hey Jojo?! he says like a handslipping through the handset to slapmy back, pull out a chair at the table.No, sorry, I say, click. Phone rings. I let itgo on shrilling like a pandererminding a whore's infant, love the same as rageat the dna level, Joey, Joseph, Joe-boy,the secretly never-aborted film starhome from France, the not so nice twinwho mind-melds every nightlong distance, the estranged best friendwith a car trunk full of meth. Only I'm not. I'm calmsurface above the drowned, the Greek stagewith fate but no king, staticlike prayer's general din, know who it is. [End Page 105] David Moolten David Moolten's most recent book, Primitive Mood, won the T.S. Eliot Award from Truman State UP. He lives and writes in Philadelphia, PA. Copyright © 2017 University of Nebraska Press