Ballad of the Long-Distance Line

We loved across a thousand milesand two unhelpful zones —my morning was your given-up,my midnight was your dawn.

I learned to want you on a screen,to memorize a pixel face,to hold a phone against my chestas if it kept your place.

They say that isn't really love,that love is in the room.But I have kissed a lit-up glassat four a.m. in gloom

and meant it more than half the menwho had me within reach.Distance is only geography.The wanting has no speech

for miles. So when at last you came,and stood, and were not lightbut weight and cold and travelled coat —I did not sleep that night.

I lay and listened to you breathethe way you never couldthree thousand miles and one bad lineaway, for all our good.