Now I ask her to kiss her fingers and then touch
Her privates just as though the kisses came from me.
And she tells me that she’s done it, someone
I’ve never met, whose passionate responses

On the internet only last that one single night;
Vulnerable and inviolable at the same time,
Utterly helpless but at a distance she will never
Bridge. Have I been chatting to a man

Or a woman? – one as alive and as dead
As Schrödinger’s cat. Anyway, age makes it
All remote. However, for a younger set
The screen is the ultimate contraceptive. When

I was young I looked like Keats in Bright Star,
And I weep into my brandy as I hear,
“Write the softest words and kiss them that
I may at least touch my lips where yours have been.”