Sally Albiso

Phone

Woman swallows phone
Blue Springs, Missouri

She swallowed her cell phone,
choked as it pressed on her larynx,

shoved there by her boyfriend
to still the tongue’s smug muscle

slick with saliva, all the words
it pierced and parried,

until she couldn’t speak or even breathe:
the phone surgically removed

but not the argument
that beat in her throat like a thrush

battered by windows mistaken for sky.
How to survive the stunned aftermath:

her voice held hostage by its own instrument,
the gasping she once confused for love.

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