Back then we all had one –
in the 60s, perhaps even as late as the 70s.
My parents used it as an excuse
for people they didn’t want to phone.
We got the party line, they’d say,
couldn’t get through.
It was someone else’s voice
coming down your black receiver,
or else, moe strange and interesting,
it was someone else’s conversation,
all their intimate to and fro, that you walked right into
without a word of introduction.
And there you’d sit quiet, an accidental spy,
eavesdropping into another life
till one of them said, slightly quizzical, then slightly cross,
I think there’s someone on the party line.
But by then it was too late –
you had slipped imperceptibly into their lives.
For a minute you were there, in a different house;
your shoes felt different, even the tie
around your neck, the weight on your toes,
and someone unknown was telling you everything,
tipping their story into your ear,
and you were nodding back to them there in the dark.
It was what you’d always wanted,
just for a moment: a different identity slid into
like a new shiny skin, with a different pair
of ears and eyes.  Even a different street
to walk out into the night –
where you’d wonder what advice,
what consolation, what last intimate word
you might offer up to them
if ever they rang you again.

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