...
Choose a new email address, they said, like it’s no big deal
But all conversation has contracted down to this keyboard
No lingering on concrete steps, stiff legged, damp folds of magazines
No late nights on the carpet, chin raw from handset perforations,
Phone cord stretched beyond its loops
No lusciously bulging envelopes
Everything arrives on screen, news and fright, attempts at pleasure
Just use your first name last name, they said, put a dot in the middle
As though I didn’t understand
But surely there’s something more I could add, an inflection to make it clear
That I’m here, waiting, for more than 12-point text and autoreplies
That something was lost in transmission
The drift of your nails on my back
That this is the way you’ll find me, one day,
When you finally decide to get in touch
...
Elana Lavine is a writer from Toronto.