Talking by phone with someone you love, the speaker says, only makes the distance hurt more. She stares at the holes in the receiver, the "box that sells her voice to me," and the wording is bitter: even a loved voice comes with a price, and the phone is the shopkeeper. She holds the handset like something alive, almost a piece of the other person, because it carries a sound she loves.
But the feeling quickly turns. The speaker hates the booth or box itself, calling it an "upright coffin" with "pimply walls" and printed warnings, as if rules and machinery are in charge of the conversation. The result is "feeble" talk, with things that simply can't be said. The last image is the strangest: the wires seem "jealous," as though the phone itself is keeping the two people apart.
The mood is lonely and frustrated, a mix of tenderness and resentment. The short, clipped lines make the speech feel halting, like the conversation it describes.