Cyber-Loss

For Kelly Knight

2002

Cyber-Loss (for Kelly Knight)

A new kind of bereavement

rocks my day.

Ethereal friendship

found ways

to creep and root and grow

across time and space:

4000 miles

no distance.

My husband says people

don’t appreciate technology,

sentimentally worshipping

an imaginary candle-lit,

inkwell parchment past.

Well now I do,

conceding tearfully how

science facilitates connections.

Looking back

your words frame

why you chose to end it:

fuchsia Arial type states

depression, pain.

But not despair…

oblivious,

I read no warning.

Sitting here

wondering what to do

with an unfamiliar loss

( ecards? Virtual flowers?

Cyber- sympathy? )

Outlook Express pings new

incoming messages,

nothing of substance.

I want you back

in my inbox.

Copyright © Tracy Pace 2002