What Rough Beast | 07 02 20 | Lisa Schapiro Flynn

Lisa Schapiro Flynn
Afterimage, April 2020

In memory of Gregg

Even now, I want
to text your empty number, not
convinced the light
of your phone
won’t reach you.
All week, I wait
to learn it’s a mistake,
sip dusky reds,
toast you until drained.
I hold my thumb down
on a Live-Photo:
Queens biergarten,
a long twilight table,
you,
an arm around your rescued dog.
You chuckle like you’re

(please)

you laugh like
you’re still here.

—Submitted on 05/05/2020

Lisa Schapiro Flynn‘s poems have appeared in The Tishman Review, Radar Poetry, The Crab Creek Review, Pretty Owl Poetry, 13th Moon, and other journals. She holds an MFA in poetry from Emerson College.

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