Jacklyn Call Gabe

He was still drunk when he wrote it-Slouched on one elbow in his mother’s kitchen,Sharpie bleeding through the white lace tablecloth,the number in a lopsided heartthat was loose at the tip–A note the size of a child’s palm,triple-stapled to the pole at the cornerof Divine and Marketwith the staccato of nothing-to-lose.He guessed at the spelling,wrote it with a y like the girl from his high schoolband, hot as a French horn,her legato, his libido–He guessed almost everything about her.Honestly couldn’t describe her face,hoped she’d turn right when she left the buildingto catch the 66, buy a scratcher at Tak,hustle to hot yoga, light a spliff–whatever, anything, just turn–He had shattered almost everything thatwasn’t handed to him broken,arms laced with scars from jagged edges.She looked him in the eye, strummedthe curve of her hip against his thigh(the bar too crowdedto avoid these duets)She told him her nameAnd for a moment he matteredto someone other than Godwho was not that much fun on a Saturday night.He sleeps it off at Mom’s.She does not see the noteHe rejoins invisibilityShe does not remember his touch.An alternate coda:She wakes, bleary and dry-mouthed,vibrating with loneliness,goes down to buy a coffee she cannot afford

at the corner where the universehas left her a sign