1-800-GET-INFO

I’m working the phones for an “800” help line,
and somehow a stranger’s struggle,
a stranger’s angst
seems very much my own.

I lost my cousin.
He lost his house.

We’ve been chatting for several minutes.
Or rather he’s blathering on bout the evils of big-city East Coast Democrats
and how he’d handle the Iraqi insurgents.
I’m smiling, nodding, and occasionally cooing a sympathetic “mm-hmm”.

I have nothing in common with this man.
He is a bigot, a racist, and probably an anti-Semite, too;
a conservative gun-toting boor from Oklahoma who voted for the man
who’s turning my country into something I don’t recognize.

And yet, I hear his breathing change
and know that he is afraid.

I lost my voice.
I found some emotions inside that I don’t even understand.
Can you help me find my voice, my cousin, his house?

I can’t help him find what he’s missing,
But I can give him a few minutes
of knowing that someone cares that he is lost.

© 5/10/07, 5/24/07
Elizabeth Lorris Ritter