He was not unlike a magician.
All he had to do was ask you to dance and you would allow him to reach a hand out, to touch, and then
there you were, dancing in the aisles of the grocery store.
You wanted to stay angry, if only for a minute more.
People pushing carts watched and he said a polite hello and picked up a soup can to balance on your head and he said softly, “Posture. Posture.”
Reconfigured, it stays the same memory.
So you will have to change it.
Make it made-up.
New words force a fiction. Right? Sure.
A wanted to stay angry, if only for a miracle more.
A wanted to stay angry, if only for a mirage more.
See, it is fun.
It is not yours anymore. It is someone else’ s.
A’ s, pathetic moment of remembering.
Poor A, poor A, so sad and lonely.
B was not unlike a magnet.
B was not unlike a magnification.
Now you are feeling better. Finally you are able to use the literary stylistics you’ve absorbed from books that people on the Internet say they are reading.
You are feeling hip.
French.
Fuck yes, figurativity!
Whaddup, abstraction.
Be unafraid. A wanted to stay angry, if only for a misadventure more.
Just keep out the he or a she or a her or a me or a him or an I.
B was not unlike a maharaja.
Just don’t add a when.
A wanted to stay angry, if only for a mischief-maker more.
Avoid the urge to contextualize.
B was not unlike a mailman.
A wanted to stay angry, if only for a misdeal more. Just don’t tell anyone what there was to be angry about.
It was X. It was Y.
Just don’t tell anyone what grocery store it was.
Distort all other memories.
He was sitting against pillows in your bed.
B is in A’s bed.
B, sitting against pillows in A’s bed, watches online videos of people doing magic tricks.
What B says is added to a list A has made and on that list are things that make it impossible for A to
imagine ever being separate from B.
B says, “Sometimes when I see a great magic trick, I feel like crying.”
B’ s face and these words are what A wakes to.
Un-real it in obscuration.
B, sitting against pinheads in A’ s beehive, waterproofs online vintners of perforation doing
mailbox trimmings.
See. There you go.
Who are these people? Surely no one you know.
What is left now? What remains?
Someone saying something you don’t recognize.
B says, “Sometimes when I see a great mailbox trimming, I feel like crying.”
B says, “Sometimes when I see a great magpie trilby, I feel like crying.”
B’s failing and these workshops are what A wallows to.
Un-love it! It is absurd.
You believed some things would always be with you.
But now --
Of course. Of course. What can be built can be buried.
Chloé Cooper Jones’s fiction has appeared in The Black Warrior Review, West Branch, and elsewhere. She is the Editor of Beecher’s Magazine. More information about Chloé can be found at chloecooperjones.com.
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