How do I speak about you as your twilight approaches
The way you fit so smoothly
in the palm of my hand
So many times I’ve held you
My fingers caressing your surface
A reassuring presence in so many ways.
Have my eyes dwelt on your radiant face
More often than on the sweet heads of my children?
I hope not, but I fear
You’ve been with me, so near
In almost every moment these past five years.
Have my fingers moved across your surface
More than they’ve trailed over my husband’s body?
Undoubtedly. How unfortunate.
So how do I say goodbye
To one who’s been so intimate
So close
And yet, also, tethered me to tough times
a symptom? or a cause?
when the wet rope of anxiety
wraps round my wrist
cutting, painful, trapped
dragging down, suffocating
in your glowing depths.
But you were a beacon
on those long, long newborn nights
A conduit of joy
upset, rage and the mundane
So many Moments: captured!
A modicum of comfort in exhaustion and despair
A window to the world, it sounds so trite!
Friends spoke, smiled and sobbed through you
And now, my most ardent hope
Is that your stuttering, failing light
Doesn’t flicker out before I fickle find
Your replacement
(A new galaxy awaits!)
It seems absurd to eulogise a machine
But, my smug little Smarty
Mirror of a thousand selfies
You’ve been with me through such a time
It feels silly-sad to lay you to rest
without some remark
before you go to gather dust in a drawer
is it fitting to bid you
Goodbye old friend?