The Old Phone Booth
By John Herlihy

Please, someone, give me back the old phone booth,
Sitting on the street corner like an old wisdom tooth.
From our vantage point clutching our smart phones,
The old closet could now serve as coffin for old bones.
They no longer stand where once they always used to be,
In a drug store or diner, connecting the world for a fee.

Like Pa’s old wood-paneled station wagon in the yard,
Or Ma’s old rot-iron frying pan sizzling strips of white lard,
Like our first TV, us children watching thru magnifying glass.
Listening to the rosary on the stand-up radio after Sunday Mass,
I used to iron Pa’s pajamas using a heavy iron heated on coals.
And threw newspapers onto porches between telephone poles.

This was a life that in my childhood I could happily call mine.
At the corner store, I bought bags of penny candy for only a dime.
When I grew up, I began to live the expat life of a vagabond;
I flitted through all the capitals of Europe as if by magic wand.
But whenever I returned to the US and home for the summer,
I called from the airport phone booth to speak first with my mother.

Perhaps there still exists somewhere an old phone booth of reflected glass,
On display in a modern museum presenting artifacts from the past.
I suspect paper routes no longer exist, though watching TV is still a habit,
Saying the rosary after Mass now probably the sole prevue of an abbot.
No one talks on the phone anymore; they take selfies on smart phones
They fly thru the air taking Gopro shots from their magical drones.