Between Stations

Past where the needle went heavy under your fingers there is a voice. It is counting. It goes seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, and stops, as if the next number were a stair that isn't there.

Then another. A woman reading the weather for a place you have been to: fog, lifting at four, wind from the northeast, as usual. Then a man, young, tired, pleased with himself, saying CQD, CQD, and then, in a different voice, Is anyone there?

The radio gets a little warmer. Nobody answers him on the air. You answer him with your hand.

The needle holds. The shop is quiet.