Longing

“We want you back!”
proclaims the flyer in today’s mail
from a magazine I tired of a year ago.
Do you really miss me,
or do you miss my number
in the column of the elect:
36 months at $149
in three easy payments?
Does your database
weep electrons at the thought of my absence.
trailing down across the electrical ground wires
and splashing to oblivion on the floor?
Or does some cubicle monk or nun,
lost in the eternal mantra of
endlessly increasing numbers
feel my lost presence in the fabric of time and space,
longing for balance transfers
halted to long ago
while wondering if they can really find true love
on the Internet tonight
in the darkness of their love juice stained bedsheets?

Is it truly me you’re longing for?
Is it really?

And what of that day
in the hopefully distant future
when my address will
returned with no forwarding possible
and prick your balance sheet
with the pittance of returned mail?
Will you really miss me then,
the lost number never to be found again
in the ranks of the subscribers
keeping current tabs on
LL’s lesbian lover
and The Material Girl’s new search
for eternal love and
Mr. Right Now?