The Telephone
The Telephone - meaning Summary
A Calling That Interrupts Life
The speaker treats the telephone as an intrusive, personified presence that stitches other people’s lives while neglecting the speaker’s needs. It sits like a strict aunt, busy with neighbors’ affairs and indifferent across days and times. The poem builds quiet irritation and emotional distance, culminating in a terse, angry interruption when the phone finally rings. The tone mixes wry observation with suppressed frustration at being sidelined.
Read Complete AnalysesIt comes in black and blue, indecisive beige. In red and chaperons my life. Sitting like a strict and spinstered aunt spiked between my needs and need. It tats the day, crocheting other people's lives in neat arrangements, ignoring me, busy with the hemming of strangers’ overlong affairs or the darning of my neighbors’ worn-out dreams. From Monday, the morning of the week, through mid-times noon and Sunday's dying light. It sits silent. Its needle sound does not transfix my ear or draw my longing to a close. Ring. Damn you!
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