Than an ending. That’s what Sarah wants. She wants to stare into Jimmy Taylor’s dark blue dark blues and see something other than the kind of midnight that doesn’t even have a fleck of the moon. She wants something other than one less text, than another, and seeing Jimmy online anyway posting and putting up photos of him at the dog park with Snook, the dog they adopted together and Jimmy telling her Snook has the mange and needs to stay out of the sun for awhile. Something other than Jimmy evaporating like he is, one small drop at a time and him forgetting their six-month anniversary last week, saying he didn’t feel well or something, and her returning the watch she was going to give him. Something other than that first date itself when they were six months younger and without the dog they would never really share anyway and his watchless wrist all tan and glowy in the twilight that his eyes were the color of, hope dotting them like tiny stars popping up one by one by one.
Francine Witte’s latest book of flash fiction is RADIO WATER (Roadside Press.) Her poetry book Some Distant Pin of Light is forthcoming from Cervena Barva Press. She lives in NYC.