Answers

 

for B

 

You never asked, but it’s overcast, it’s the sky the shade of both dawn and dusk so the sun is both rising and setting, it’s Schroedinger’s cat on the horizon. It’s burnt rice in the pot, the loose hang of a tank top’s neck. It’s discovering dog ear in a library book, it’s knowing the most important lines of your life before you’ve even met them.

 

It’s riding your bike downhill, ass out of the seat, not worried about traffic, it’s the wind whistling in your ear’s pinna—pure and solid. It’s the sound of a pile of quarters in your pocket that your grandma gave you to get whatever you wanted at the 7-11, hell it’s any kind of money when the aunts get laid off again.

 

It’s standing in line at the Griffith Observatory, the busiest telescope stateside, it’s a handful of tourists away from seeing Jupiter, tolerating the guide who makes the same joke about each person holding the record for the most number of views at the stars, it’s the little kid hogging the eyepiece because he buys into it—for every second he stretches out, he’s most special person in the world.

 

It’s mango sliced around the pit, it’s the rinds with teeth marks. It’s a worn down callous, a string of green balloons. It’s someone covering your eyes—Guess who, they say but what they’re trying to ask is, Who else could it be?

 
 
 

Eric Tran is a medical student at UNC and received his MFA from UNCW. He has a chapbook of poetry, Affairs with Men in Suits (Backbone Press), and his work appears in Indiana Review, Crab Orchard Review, the Collagist, Redivider, and elsewhere.