Please leave a message

We're letting the home phone go tomorrow.

The number our children have known

and could recite at a clip since they were small

seveneightonethreeeightnineeight!

will no longer be ours.

The only ones who call us on it

are our alma maters for money

and recorded voices

to remind us about dental appointments

or to take a survey

or vote.

The answering machine will go with it,

as will the message my mother said makes me sound

like I'm laughing in the middle,

or sneezing.

The message from before then 

everyone knew 

and still misses.

Please leave a message when you hear la beep

they yelled.

she couldn't say the.

Thank you, they'd said in unison, small children

saying thank you the way 

small children do
when they're told to.

My daughter called one more time

to say goodbye.

Why does this make me so sad?

I miss our phone number.

Now the number I have marked Home isn't for home

anymore.

How will I reach you?

Will someone else get our phone number?

It's the one I'd planned to call if I were kidnapped.

Oh well, I hope the new people who get our number are nice.

This is the same daughter who used an old phone we had

to talk to her great grandfather after he died.

It was a red phone.

She called it the dead phone. 

This is the same daughter who misses every age 

the night before she turns a new one,

who said she'd never forgive us for getting rid of the old sofa

and would never sit on the new one.

I hate change, she told me,

like it was news.

My family can recite old numbers impressively.

8924092 was the lake

7746814 was Gisi's 

7722652 was my dad's office.

My mother can recall her childhood number

on Clinton Street 

where she hasn't lived in 70 years.

I understand my daughter's sadness,

the loss of old numbers,

the way to reach those most loved people

in places most familiar and safe

with all our childhood 

at the other end of the line.

.