nobody says your name out loud anymore I’ve forgotten the sounds
that it makes the gentle turn-back of the tongue a nod to the throat
the breathy ah the deliberate collision of lips at the end the plosive
rebound every action having an equal and opposite reaction we raced
through stupid nights nobody says your name out loud anymore the faces
of your tall friends slipping away their last names gone the beige fibers
of the carpet we lay on one New Year’s Eve in front of the TV disintegrating now
in the dampness of some Western New York landfill what were we watching?
I thought I would always remember nobody says your name out loud anymore
no one here recalls the hallowed curve of your lumbar spine the particularities
of your loping gait the precious angle of your sculpted scapula your wayward
bangs I’m not as certain of the shade of grayish-blue I’ve stopped searching
for anyway decades decades pass has anyone ever said my name out loud
did its sibilate ooh ever cross the narrow space between your lips and mine.
Fiction - ISSUE #28