Long Distance

The Cooper's hawk photographed by
my telephone camera back in 2020
is now feathers blowing down I-80 

from the grill of a semi but its photo 
remains ominous. You see, 
there are degrees of dead.

After a friend of a friend passed, 
his lover continued to pay his phone bill 
and every night she would leave him 

an update about her day and she swore 
his ashes on the mantle would stir a little.
Perhaps it was the way the house 

shook when a train passed. 
Perhaps not. 
The dead, they gambol through my 

contacts list and lounge in the photos 
on my phone. There's a shot of Ron, 
my coffee klatsch partner, gone now.

Perhaps I'll give him a call anyway, 
leave him a message about ancestry.com, 
tell him I found a plantation owner  

in my line of forebearers so yes, 
I'm a child of slavers now. And man 
those folk are not dead, not even close. 

I can feel the shackled, those paraded 
with a price tag, still trying to reach me. 
They'll never stop, so call me a coward; 

my number is unlisted and I'm not 
dead yet. These days death care 
companies can take a man and turn 

his ashes into a diamond; perhaps 
the day will come when they'll 
burn me into a phone. Hook me up 

with a signal then and I might live forever.
Hear me ring and ring and ring.

TOM BARLOW

Tom Barlow is an American writer whose work has appeared in many journals, including Trampoline, Ekphrastic Review, Voicemail Poetry, Hobart, Tenemos, Redivider, The North Dakota Quarterly, The New York Quarterly, The Modern Poetry Quarterly, and many more. See tombarlowauthor.com.