Placebo

Lines of black text against an off-white square
Can never quite replace a smiling face;
A green dot shining as if ever there
Is still not worth a single warm embrace.
A little grey notation of her typing
Is not her sitting by me, thinking hard
Even the vision of her fondly Skyping
Or lovely missives in my folder, starred
Are not her presence. Yet they can all serve
In times of absence, long and deep and bleak
To bend a little back the mournful curve
That makes our separation pine and peak.
I shall be with her someday, this I know
Because of gchats passing to and fro.