Postscriptum by Joseph Brodsky (tr. George Kline)

How sad that my life has not come to mean
for you what your life came to mean for me.
...How many times in vacant lots have I
consigned my copper coin, crowned with the seal
of state, to that webbed universe of wires,
attempting hopelessly to stretch the time
of our connectedness...Alas, unless
a man can manage to eclipse the world,
he's left to twirl a gap-toothed dial in some
phone booth, as one might spin a ouija board,
until a phantom answers, echoing
the last wails of a buzzer in the night.