Broadcast

I speak briefly: ask my car

to ‘Call Dad’, start intruding

on his idle afternoon.

He was resting, he tells me;

yet, pulled suddenly from sleep

launches straight into Putin,

a history of Dorset;

does twenty bloody minutes

on Scandinavian crime.

Twice he asks how I’m doing –

twice he interrupts. We’re live

on air and this is his show

and I don’t call him enough

and he always goes to voice.

It’s weeks till he speaks again.