The stationary bike says pedal faster.
I think, Ok, but when?
I can never describe pain without it
sounding exactly like love.
Both are like petting a dog
in an Elizabethan collar while trying
to get to a stereo in 1994 to press Record
and deciding if smokestacks are beautiful.
Has anyone ever told you
you look good crossing bridges?
Time is of the essence
of something.
This was still the time
when you could tell if a person heard you
by the look on their face. By the way
I miss the sound of a phone hanging up,
how that click was hard, then
soft, once I realized it was over.
Anytime something ends I have a hard time
getting over it, even if it’s just a phone call.
Sherwood Anderson is going to save me,
we said, but I doubted it.
Ask the rooftops of Elyria if he saved all of them.
I was just as lonely, but I didn’t know how.
In poetry, people make jokes about fragmentation.
I understand parts of them.
Meg Thompson's chapbook, Farmer, is due out later this year from Kattywompus Press. She lives in Cleveland where she works as a prep cook at a local restaurant.