I could pretend nothing mattered while I beamed at my daughter 
in her pink, steampunk glasses and oversized white shirt with an outrageous
floppy collar—that nothing bothered me, but my son was staring
bullets into my suddenly lucky face—presumably because I wasn’t admiring
him, and the heart of the boy seized behind brown eyes.

Tonight, the cascade of hair he’d grown flopped to protect
from intruders, and he felt the controls on the Nintendo Switch take
a road through Capri at top speeds, anything but be here now—a warm bottle
of Perrier at hand as usual, a strange compliment.

Tonight, her device clacked
under wisps of thumb, occasional taps of finger—she
learned the WiFi for Heine Brothers Coffee easily enough to linger
with friends never seen, never spoken with directly, nor correctly guessed
whether they were a suitable remedy for 

the strange absence I left, the freakish caves
dotting the landscape under their suburban home,
and those dinners of cereal and milk in piled up bowls and boxes in her room.