Andrew Borgstrom
We walked our final street like mathematicians writing poetry with our bare bodies. This was after the coriander and dulse, the paprika and alum, even the garam masala. Your long black jacket that complemented your hair and the night. This was after calculating the figures we were. Your shoes left marks everywhere but in racquetball courts. The stitches in our clothing and flesh. Your parents said you asked for a ram instead of a pony. The chivalry I feigned and the bones I broke. I did not purposefully hide the flyer about the free hayrides. My subconscious purposefully hid the flyer because it hides all flyers and not because it has anything against riding in free hay. We searched for horseshit in the road. I managed to say nothing in thirty-three syllables. You responded with a gamut of words I’d never heard you use before, including gamut. We inserted interjections. We swallowed insertions. I claimed all of your sentences had three meanings. You claimed you weren’t speaking in sentences. The long black night complemented your jacket and your hair. I memorized the percentage of cotton in each of your shirts. We rode our final train like poets writing equations with our bare feet. Where had all the horseshit gone? I wore shirts made from the percentage of cotton your shirts lacked. The bones I feigned and the chivalry I broke. You kept adding water to dilute the flavor. We figured everything had a solution. We would have made amazing locals. Congratulations would be in order. Everything would be in order. Everybody would say congratulations. We would never learn the word interminable. You taught me how to pronounce and spell interminable. I dog-eared the page. I ate the page. I refused to acknowledge the existence of the page I dog-eared and ate. I played more racquetball. I will only ever play racquetball.