My daughter’s voice
tumbled zeros and ones
into new configurations
on a phone company server bank.
Hearing her voice
thirty-one years after her death
droned my chest
with fluctuating neural signals.
Those skipped heartbeats
I will never get back.
My extremities blued
as I listened to her message.
The closing beep
signaled back to normal
at an unconscious level
of mental processing.
I smacked myself on the forehead
for automatically hitting delete
instead of replay
to hear her voice again.
copyright © 2022 Kenneth P. Gurney
Umflop 