041 by Iain Banks

041

My lady’s voice on the phone
Like an electric thread of silk
Drawing me back through night’s dark maze
To a stormy city
A handful-hundred miles away.
“There’s thunder,
Can you hear it?”
I hear
Something too fine, too balanced
To be called tangle,
Too wisely innocent of plans, devices
To be named weave.
I press the plastic closer,
Try to bring her nearer.
“Can you hear the thunder?”
But the gale is drowned,
The rain hushed,
Thunder quieted.
She speaks,
And a gentler force
Overwhelms all of them.