A priest friend of mine once joked around that I could write a poem about anything, including a phone book. So, I took him up on the challenge. It was written last summer and recently shared with the challenger, and deemed an acceptable completion. A 2009 Phone Book, Uncovered rows of digits only making sense with the code the names and people categorized by alphabet a distinction made up by label we have waited years for a general anethestic to kill the pain of trying to understand the differences in name, in label strung out in columns upon the page who are we and why and how the steady numbered rows lack clarity what is the code? what is the relation? to each abbreviated formation Jones, Edward Jones, Edward D&Co Jones, Elizabeth Emmett J Jones, Florenz H Forrest Fred A Fred A Jr. Gayle & Jeffrey ...