LONG DISTANCE ISN’T

Separated by a sea, two shores,

the clans of Vercingetorix, the Brenner

Pass, the boot of Italy

from just below the knee to halfway

down the calf, we nix them all

by phone.

Our voices kiss.

Who cares if the Atlantic bashes

Maine, Land’s End, or Normandy?

We leapfrog hemispheres the way

the mind cavorts through God-knows-what

millennia, what dynasties, what

samples of our kind from

Australopithecus to Charlie Chaplin.

The body’s place?

Cross latitude

by longitude, and it is there.

The body’s age?

Count up

from birth or back from death,

and it is there.

But words?

We launch them out like vows

against the wind.

Creating what we are,

they wing through seas and continents

and make us more than elegies

to yesterday.

Forget the cost.

Talk louder and ignore the static.

Pretend we’re walking through the dark.

Don’t stop.

Don’t stop or look

behind you.

As long as you

keep talking, I can find you.

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