Hope Does Not Spring Eternal

I am on the phone.
I have a list.
I won’t
Take busy signals
For answers.
Saint Vincent’s, Cabrini, anything
Downtown. Then Uptown.
Then Jersey.
Rumor had it
They shipped people there,
Legions of people
Who couldn’t remember
Their names.
Sympathetic admitting clerks
Check their own lists
For me. “No one
By that name…NO
ONE BY THAT NAME…
Did you call
The Red Cross?”
It takes me
Three days to stop
Dialing. To throw
Away the list; go
Down to the church;
Get down
On my knees.