Separation Anxiety

Oh, I knew of your going
weeks before you stepped on the plane;
a mutual friend informed me.


But I didn't pick up the phone,


call to get all the details. I thought
that I would not miss you,
that I would surely be able to hold


you firmly in my mind during


the months of your travels.
Yet now I keenly feel the ties that link
us, thinly stretched across


continents and oceans and time.


And I am suddenly reduced
to walking past your door and phoning
to hear your voice on a machine.