Long Distance

your joy would cause the springtime a spell of jealousy, and

the cold of your anger would make a massachusetts winter shiver,

but it is not these i miss:

simply your presence,

the sensual experience of your voice,

lost in the metallic conversions of a telephone wire;

the heat of you five inches away,

or closer,

never imitated in the tamed temperature of an electric blanket;

your facial expression,

never captured by photographs.

your body is not here. but i know

that because it is here on the page,

i could never miss your mind,

and that your soul is down here behind my teeth.

though you can’t bridge this long distance,

you are inside

everything i do.

This poem is part of the collection Dusk Before Dawn: Poems. More info: https://www.jessicaknauss.com/dusk-before-dawn-poems/