MY DIGITAL INTIMATE

by Robert Fanning

Robert Fanning's poetry has been published in The Ledge, Ploughshares, The Hawaii Review, and America. He currently lives and writes in Berkely, Michigan.

* * * * * * * * * *

LISTEN TO DIGITAL INTIMATE HERE

Beneath us, over us, toward us-a web of luminous threads-the network reels its far spun luster. Through this optic channel into us, our bits, our secret data burns through hair-thin glass and air. We, invisible- watch the urgent cursor pulse, and grow closer than touch or speech. Alone together again tonight, your voice of misspellings and broken clauses blinks and glides single character by single character across the dark face of my window; the glass screen and 15,000 miles of mountain and ocean can't divide us. Tonight, my satellite, boot up, log on, give me long, slow sentences. Lean out your window, describe your present world. Decipher every bright thing across the immediate sky, over the currents and moonlit contours of your country. Whoever you are, my disembodied anonymous, my shared user, my instant linguist-imagine me as you wish. Draw me through this interface once more. Hold me close in this ethereal stream until our circuits dim, until we shut down to dream.