I don’t ever pick up my phone with the intention
to communicate with the dead
but there you are—
your phone numbers, email, birthday,
solid as ever; your profile picture
above the unreal blues
and white domes of Santorini,
bringing me back to the coffee shop,
where I first tapped in the information,
when it was clear our relationship
was moving on.
Your words were our last.
It was the pause I remember, me waiting
for you to hang up, imagining you
doing the same, wherever you were—
a different pause than our sick-in-love,
“You hang up...” “…No—you.”
This was a clinical ceremony—the couple
at the attorney’s office, having signed the divorce
papers, not knowing what else to do
after a lifetime together, shaking hands.
I Google a prayer
to forward to whomever
might keep your phone, holding you
in the technology, as I had.
But uncertain where you stand on God
these days, I don’t press Send. Instead,
I imagine you, your eyes hesitating
over the Delete button,
as we share this pause, the loving kind,
my thumb hovering.