What’s Left by Dina L. Relles

He stands beside me with his back to the bar, knees bent, so our eyes meet when he asks What do you want to do with me? though he knows the answer is take him to a lamplit corner of the sidewalk and feel his unfamiliar mouth on mine, though he knows want is not have and say is not do and so what’s left at the end of a life is little—a few letters, maybe, saved in an antique trunk the color of honey to remember all the leavings—what’s left is only a longing for what never was.

Dina L. Relles’ work has appeared or is forthcoming in matchbook, Monkeybicycle, Paper Darts, CHEAP POP, River Teeth, and Wigleaf, among others, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is an Assistant Prose Poetry Editor at Pithead Chapel. Find her at www.dinarelles.com or @DinaLRelles.