When I waited for you outside, clutching the tissues
and pulling up tufts of grass, your friend came over
and, his eyes on the horizon, said you lived in this town.
You couldn’t be seen exiting with me.
I nodded, ducking back into the paneled saloon
where he barred my way, sprawled in a disk of drool.
He agreed to drive me to the film festival.
You’d be there in the dark with strange women and men,
absorbed in pictures more solid than these
if I ever found you again.
Jana Prikryl
