remember when we graduated
from landlines
       to cell phones,
freeing us from tangled cords
in stuffy rooms?

while others rejoiced, I lamented
the loss of our old phone.

I always knew where to find it
       and where I stood.
if I pulled away, it always brought me back
       to where I belonged.
with it, I’d never wander off and find myself

adrift.

and now when I float through space,
I find they’ve liberated us from safety tethers,
turned my umbilical cord to the ship
       into a wireless gravitational connection.

they say spacewalks are safer than ever
without needing to shackle spacesuit to spacecraft,
       human to machine—
zoom and pirouette wherever you like.

yet a pang hits me, like a meteorite etching a crater on my heart.
just like with our phones, we’ve lost our physical connection,
and I can’t help but feel

untethered.