The telephone is supposed to shrink distance, yet Carol Berge's speaker finds that it makes the gap harder to bear. "When we talk on the / telephone, we feel our / loss more heavily." The opening sentence sets out the poem's whole paradox. A call is a small, mechanical sample of closeness, and a sample only makes the speaker more aware of what is missing. The poem never says exactly what the loss is. The word "coffin" later in the poem hints at something darker than distance, but the text leaves this open, and that openness lets the feeling fit many kinds of separation.
The grammar of the opening is revealing. The poem begins with a shared "we", as if both people suffer equally. After that first sentence every line is lowercase, and the speaker becomes a small, solitary "i": "i stare at the / slits", "i hold the phone", "i hate the / upright coffin". The shared grief gives way to one person alone with an object. Even the capital letter seems to have been used up on the first line.
The imagery turns the phone into something both commercial and bodily. The mouthpiece is a set of "slits", and the whole device is "the box that / sells her voice to / me." The verb "sells" is cold and transactional. The woman's voice has become a product, delivered through a机械 grille and paid for in some way. The sibilance of "slits", "sells" and "voice" hisses through the lines like static. Then comes a sudden softening: "i hold the phone / like a live thing, like / part of her." The simile is tender and a little desperate, since the speaker clutches a piece of plastic as if it were a hand. The poem is honest about this contradiction. The object "holds / a sound i love", and the word "yet" then swings the sentence round to hatred.
What the speaker hates is described in grim physical detail. The phone is an "upright coffin" with "pimply walls" and "printed admonitions / lining it". The coffin sets death against the earlier "live thing". Judging by the imagery, the speaker may be picturing a phone booth, with its cramped walls and printed notices. "Pimply" is an unexpected word. It makes the surface seem adolescent, ugly and faintly embarrassing, which is an odd thing to place next to grief. The "admonitions" suggest rules and warnings, the voice of an institution scolding in the middle of a private moment. These details explain why the speaker feels the machine is "in control / of our feeble / conversation."
The form supports this feeling of being controlled. There is no rhyme and no regular metre. The lines are short and break in awkward places, often on small, unfinished words such as "the", "our" and "a". The reader is left hanging at the end of each line, much as the speakers hang on the line waiting for the right thing to say. The word "me." sits alone on its own line, stranded. "in control" is also isolated, so that the idea of power stands out from the rest of the sentence. The language is plain and nearly conversational, and the flatness suits the "feeble" talk it describes. Nothing is ornamented, because the poem is about how ornament and warmth get lost in transmission.
The ending is the most surprising part. After "there are things / unsayable in it", the poem could have closed on despair. Instead it adds a strange, almost wry thought: "as though the / wires were / jealous." The word "jealous" turns the technology into a third party, a rival who stands between the lovers and resents what they share. The "as though" matters, because the speaker does not claim this is true. It is a half-joking way of explaining why love goes quiet on the line. Blaming the wires is easier than admitting that some feelings simply cannot be put into a conversation. Placing "jealous" alone on the final line gives it a sharp, sudden finish.
The poem is worth reading because it takes a familiar everyday experience and shows its emotional cost. Many people have felt that a call can leave them lonelier than before. Berge captures that feeling in a few lines, using a commercial verb, a coffin and a jealous wire, and without any sentimental speeches. Her poem suggests that a way of communicating is never neutral, because it shapes what can be said.