Betty Elms by Tessa Sagner

It was just things that happened which I’m plenty allowed to add the list, 

counted plastic beads on a string falling to be with their friends before the inevitable clasp cordons them off to their proper time

And no matter the melodramatic songs and late-night steering-wheel-thumping swerving drives to corner stores that landmarked it all, placards in field guides sorted by sex and molting, decorated with pictures of you or someone very similar to you, all learning from yourselves as you were yesterday, plucking bugs off each other’s backs in idolatry

It all works out in the end, the women on the television teaching by example, how to pull my sweater over my head while leaving my undershirt on

I had imagined you but not this far ahead

You knew the places better than I even claimed to but it’s all sanctioned and sectioned, no more of that kind of talk