Let It Ring Twice

“Let it ring twice,” my mother always said
While waiting news of someone newly dead.
I wonder if she learned this from her mom
A ploy when she was beautiful and young,
A scam so boys would think she didn’t care
So they’d feel snubbed and then their love declare?
Were phone lines so bad when she was 14
She the eager one waiting for a ring
And didn’t want to lose that call again?
She met my future father at a dance
He called her on the phone at every chance
A score and six years later did they part
He left her dangling on the wire of his heart
Rejoined in death, a single grave apart.

R. Scardino 4/1/07