with all my friends & sometimes still am
even though you can’t say that out loud
except in a karaoke song at a dive bar on the LES
I hate to swim but love the ocean
all that artificial blue for miles
I miss my mother (who isn’t dead) & always will
her illegible cursive on my refrigerator door
when we go shopping she sits in the fitting room
while I try on bras & dresses for a wedding
I’m thirty-four & live alone I don’t know
the number of any doctor who will I call in a winter
without her I will never pick up the phone
From So Long (Four Way Books, 2023) by Jen Levitt. Copyright © 2023 by Jen Levitt. Used with the permission of the publisher.