October Whimsy

by Rachel Jendrzejewski

I liked holding your arm that night I kept losing my shoes, the night of sleepy chilly late-night cherry vodka stumblehome. I liked the security of surreal new generous you, my oddly reassuring lullhum in an unfamiliar sea. Some silly side of me wanted to kiss you, and I wondered, Did that corner of lace make your Catholic bones quake? I know you're not my soul mate and I'm not yours (you'll never love Brecht and I'll never love motor sports), and one day the waves will part, taking you to some graceful mermaid and me to my faraway questionmark sailor. But right now, you call Good morning? to my room with your rolling accent, your shy polite hesitation in the hallway, then turn on Polish radio and start scrambling eggs; so I emerge in my glasses and fix coffee on the stove like you taught me, and we bump and blush and ignore. And as we sit down to breakfast and you talk and talk and talk... I listen and smile to myself and think, Dear stranger-turned-friend, I liked holding your arm.

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Rachel Jendrzejewski is a writer of plays, poems, grants and valentines. She currently lives in Poland and is a founding family-member of The Traveling Neighborhood.