The Hello Girls

BY KC TROMMER

Good morning. Operator.
A few hundred calls an hour. Inferno.
Red lights: incoming white lights: connected
damn thing ablaze at all hours.

9 p.m. to 2 a.m. for the new girls, stuffing cords into
machine mouths:
Schenectady 793,
Saratoga 518,
up to the Stony Creek corner payphone.
1957: there is a script. Not Yes but Surely
to the man calling Detroit collect.
The voice was to sparkle. The smile comes through.
One ring, the metal click and
slide of ten girls plugging in.

10:15 and 3:15
could never come fast enough and
if she blinked–Hold, please–
she might miss a break, pull the plug on a man
who called her sweetheart.

Posted by nnoveno on April 21, 2008 in Magazine, Poetry 

Comments

  1. Hop on the Inaugural Issue : Sunday Salon on April 21st, 2008 12:17 pm

    [...] The Hello Girls by KC Trommer [...]

  2. Poets at April 08 Sunday Salon and poetry in SalonZine! : Sunday Salon on April 22nd, 2008 11:01 am

    [...] That’s right: long live prose and poetry! Our inaugural issue poets include the veritable KC Trommer and S.G. [...]

  3. Hop on the Inaugural Issue | MOVE : Sunday Salon on June 12th, 2008 10:05 am

    [...] The Hello Girls by KC Trommer [...]

  4. Reetta Naapanki on August 15th, 2008 11:13 am

    I used to know KC when I was an exchange student in Bangor High School, Maine (1988-1989). My last name was Pesonen at that time. Thanks to the internet I’ve had a chance to read some of KC’s poems even here in Finland and I’m very happy for KC’s success. Poems play an important part in my life – they make life worth living. Do you think that you could send this message with my e-mail address to KC – I’d love to get in touch with her again!
    “To life, to life L’haim”.
    I really apreciate your help.

    Sincerely, Reetta Naapanki (Pesonen)

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