‘It was many and many a year ago, in a kingdom by the sea,’
(our kingdom gone and forgotten now, faded as your picture)
‘that a maiden there lived whom you may know by the name of Annabel Lee.’

Even the grief is dull now, worn and dog-eared,
as familiar as that book you used to read to me.
(‘It was many and many a year ago, in a kingdom by the sea...’)

Your image in my mind is no longer the truth of you as I saw it,
more the memory of a dream of imagining your face.
(‘that a maiden there lived whom you may know by the name of Annabel Lee...’)

I wouldn’t feel so bad if I could only remember your voice,
your real voice, not the tinny recording stored in my brain for safekeeping.
(‘It was many and many a year ago, in a kingdom by the sea...’)

It really bothers me, this thing with the voice.
I promised to remember - how can I forget so quickly?
(‘that a maiden there lived whom you may know by the name of Annabel Lee...’)

So here I sit with your picture and ten centuries of grief,
studying every line of the battered, faded image before me.
(‘It was many and many a year ago, in a kingdom by the sea...’)

In time, I too will die - will the last traces of you die with me?
(‘It was many and many a year ago, in a kingdom by the sea,
that a maiden there lived whom you may know by the name of Annabel Lee..’)