Learning to Text

Suzanne Morris

June 25, 2023

for my son, Quentin

Iloveyou

I text; there’s no space

between the words

as if I’d said them out loud:

ILOVEYOU

no space between our bodies

when we hugged goodbye

before you went back home

having taught me to text

on my new flip phone

a needed step in this

vast new widowhood

I’ve woken up to.

You text back quickly,

as if you were

awaiting my words

speeding through cyberspace

You too!!!

I hold the phone in one hand

the instruction booklet

open in the other:

which key do I use

for inserting a space

a step I must

learn to take

now that I’m alone?

Suzanne Morris is a novelist and poet.  Her work is included in several poetry anthologies, most recently, Lone Star Poetry (Kallisto Gaia Press, 2022).  Her poems have appeared in The Texas Poetry Assignment, The New Verse News, Stone Poetry Quarterly, The Pine Cone Review, Emblazoned Soul Review, and Creatopia Magazine.  Ms. Morris lives in Cherokee County, Texas.