That the cleft of your neck
the hairs would stand up
lightly, deftly,
at the thought of our touch
That never comes then
Could glass and indifferent
electric short empathy
really sustain
what is a long and silver shiver of a pretence of presence
The phone is not the nape of your neck
or even the smooth warm metal
on your finger
Then in perhaps crying out to appreciate
that such of you
you imagine
would spark the delicate electronics
of phones to failure
that might bring a strange new look
of short fear
of an assumed reality
at arms length
that is no longer so.
Go to her them
Travel the physical distance
of small unknowns
Is she there from moment
to moment?
You arrive.
She is there.
This time all the hairs
on the nape of you neck
are rising before and at touch
with an electricity wholly
devoid of indifference.
Carl John Barber, September 2016.