Love Letters

My map says we are only eight inches apart.
I could reach out and touch your smile
from that distance. We could lay in
this bed, listening to the wind and the rain
and Tom Waits on the stereo, my hair tickling
your cheek, your hand on the place
where my hip tapers into my waist.
You could tell self-deprecating jokes and
laugh at me for being clumsy, bookish, effusive.
I could make you biscuits and gravy in the morning;
we could eat in our pajamas.

But those eight inches translate to
days on the highway, hours on a plane.
So I choose my words carefully, searching
for the right ones to send. The ones that plead
with the miles between us
to contract into eight inches again.