&

you’d stand there
and drip marigold

i’d wonder how the currents brought you
here like a whorling plastic bag with its rows
of misspelled thank yous

we’d nod to each other
sit at a table for three
avoid pupils like too similar magnets

while you’d rhapsodize
i’d trace the loops of our lost ampersand

we’d forget the sundial shadow
playing stabscotch with our conversation

i’d unlock my journals full of interrobangs
that you’d admire like the collection
of mortise keys you never found

we’d laugh at my love affair
with sunset swaths
across a half-packed suitcase

then we’d sit and listen to the dénouement
in silence

Eric Odynocki is a first-generation American writer whose parents come from Mexico and Ukraine. Eric’s work has been nominated for Best Small Fictions and has appeared in Jabberwock Review, The Brooklyn Review, PANK, and elsewhere. When not teaching Spanish or Italian, Eric is an MFA student at Stony Brook Southampton.

Appears In

Issue 17

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