Meetings

Duran Duran on the radio. A/C belching dumbly into the path of a ceiling fan.

Four strangers at a table, shifting their gaze nervously between each other and the café entrance.

One clicks her pen against an armrest.

“Maybe we just go ahead and get started?”

All four of these people have responded to the Writers Group ad, still pinned to the bulletin board across the room, two tabs left unripped.

Whoever posted the ad is no longer replying to text messages, and does not appear to have shown up.

Meanwhile, outside, two soulmates walk past each other without noticing.

Advertisement

good on paper

what makes this person’s name feel so good to write?

how did they get the damn alphabet to look so pretty when they’re around??

even your pen agrees, and who could resist a ride along the curves and folds

of that heavenly spoken outline on the page..

you even write it just a little wrong on purpose

so that you have to re-write it again in a different spot..

and again..

but you never cross it out.

because you’re secretly drawn to the horror of them one day discovering that page

on which you thought about them 187 fucking times

Porker

Porker was a house cat who had never lived in a house. One snowy day he found a cabin. The woman in the doorway wouldn’t let him inside.

Porker brought her an ermine. She smiled, but stood firm. He slept in the shed.

Weeks later, Porker heard a shout. The woman ran out and said, “Kill that mouse, and you can stay.”

Porker raced inside and ate the mouse. She piled pillows by the fire for him.

That night he tried following her upstairs. She blocked him. He returned to the fire to wait. Eventually a mouse would go upstairs.