Never Alone

by Michael E. Lloyd

You’re never alone
with a phone.

Beside you walks your date, the lone
attestor to your gaze of stone.
You catch no scents of lawns new-mown,
to you across the ether blown;
you have no care for tea or scone
or candyfloss or ice-cream cone ...
they’re not a patch on chats with Joan
or Jane or John or any Sloane.
And if your date is moved to moan
you’ll switch to one less bored, more prone
to worship at your mobile throne.

You take a train, all caution thrown,
pick up the sacred dog and bone
and threads of conversations sewn,
ignore the poor commuter’s groan.
And deep within your cell you hone
yr txtng sklls, wth vwls nt shwn.

Your monthly bills have grown and grown
but someone else took out the loan
that keeps you talking, costs unknown.

And when your hopes have all but flown
that some friend’s name will start to glow and
draw you back to practised drone,
and you’re about to dial your own,
and fall to talking with your clone ...
your liberating siren’s tone
will call you home to twilight’s zone!

So don’t be alone:
hold that phone.