Poetry for Engineers: Safe Distance

How do I touch youacross the ocean,across cold depthswhere light travels through glass.Not copper—fibers. Optical. Through liquid glass, through flickering lightthat carries you in fragments. Light broken into pulses. You say: it’s easier this way. What are we missing like this? You smile.Safe distance. I say: network. Signals slide beneath the sea, through cables thinner than trust, faster than touch,slower than longing. We stand alone, together. Synchronous, yet apart. Icons replace skin, late