On the living room couch,
I asked my phone a verbal question:
"What is an albatross?"

And before it could answer,
my father began his reply
from the kitchen counter--

To be cut short by my phone who had finished thinking,
the screen flashing a series of definitions for "albatross"
and reading them aloud to me.

My father stopped, and looked at me forlornly.

I daren't look back--
And the sound of a heart breaking,
whether mine or his,
and the silence it engulfed,
was hidden under the blanket of the contraption's monotone voice.

A little more humanity was lost today,
and my father yet again was faced with the reality that
even if he had all the answers,
as he had in my inquisitive childhood--

No one was left to ask him the questions.