Open Line

---

Someone is already talking when the call connects.
Another voice comes in, slightly late, slightly off.
No one stops.

The exchange continues, close enough to follow.

Then something shifts.

A pause holds longer than it should.
No one reacts.

The call continues.

It does not break.
It does not end.

It stays open.

The next voice comes in.
It fits.
Not quite.

---

Open Line (a poem)
By Kerry A. Wiley

The call ends
without ending.

A tone still held somewhere in the line,
a sentence cut
before it settles.

Something remains in the room,
not visible,
but shifting
what follows.

A name appears
where it should not.
Not spoken,
but present.

Conversations continue elsewhere.
The same words,
the same rhythm,
but placed slightly wrong,
and no one corrects it.

No one points to it.
No one stops speaking.
Everything around it
keeps going.

Already past it.

Reactions arrive before cause,
conclusions without origin.

Things said too early,
things taken too far.

Except one point
where nothing follows.

A door stays half open.
People move past,
No one notices.

Everything still in place,
nothing interrupted,

but something
does not carry.

Elsewhere, things move forward.
Plans get made,
voices settle into place,

but here,
it does not carry through.

Conversations continue
in another room.

That name does not come up again.

The line stays open
longer than it should.

---

The call goes dark.

Conversations continue in another room.
That name does not come up again.

The line stays open
longer than it should.