An Online Friend Dies Somewhere Outside the Internet

Freezes, goes blue screen, shuts down. Dead pixel, dark.

Ghost echoes, lossy in the source code. Time zones away,

people who have actually shaken hands with my online friend

stand around a box of his remains. I'm left to click through data,

two-dimensional and without decay, in multiple windows.

Close all until I'm left by the one that renders birds, sky,

and keep-moving-nothing-to-see-here clouds. Nothing

to see here. I go for a walk to the edge of town, daydream

a closed-loop whirlwind in a field of tall grass.

Cast a rock into the dark old sea.