The End of Black Snakes and Happy?

I’m not sure if i will finish the book into  my adulthood, or even if this “poem” belongs with the others.

Montgomery, Alabama

 

279-8819

Is the number

to my rich uncle’s house, though I almost never called to talk to him, but instead one of his five sons. Or it was, from the time they built the new house in a modern high end neighborhood called Eagle Pass at 120 Lookout Ridge and I memorized one evening at Wednesday night church over forty years ago. A few years ago I was sitting in the kitchen at their house. We had just buried my aunt, who died months after my uncle. We, being out of town relatives who spent the night in their home one last time. The beige wall phone rang and someone answered it. But I thought to myself right then, “I’ll never need to call that number again.” And now there are so many numbers and addresses, so many people and places I keep alive in my mind with their address and phone number who will finally be dead to me when I am dead, too and no one will keep those numbers in their head, but maybe someone

will keep me alive by holding the number

they will never call again