Goodbye
I say goodbye to my father.
See his face.
Whisper the words
He cannot hear – being dead.
Being still.
In the intimacy of the exchange,
There is stillness.
The stillness of death.
The stillness of my sister
Holding her phone.
Gifting me with closeness
Denied by Covid.
Forcibly far,
Three thousand miles distant,
I am
Transported through her device,
In grief,
In love,
In pixels,
Present by proxy.
For his military burial,
I stand alone
In black,
Attending through the digital wormhole
in my dining room
To say goodbye.