My memories dissolve when I’m trying

to learn from the one before and the one

before that. We’re texting. He is reading

Marx and I am dropping Butler and soon

he says he wants to explore our bodies that

matter. So often I conflate attention

with affection and affection with magic

 

as if words like interpellation and ideology

aren’t a Google search away. This is our

third day texting, moved from an app

to blue bubbles that read “Delivered”

until, in a few days, they won’t.

 

He is a photographer and sends photos

angled, no face, positioned like he has

done this before. Me, a girl when asked

to do something, does - try after try after

try - and when he says, I can’t wait to meet

you in person, how exquisite you’ll be,

I think, he can see this too.

 

Still I ask, How do you know? I ask,

always ask, looking for someone who is

not me to have an answer as close to magic

as mine. Instead, like it’s a science, he says,

Great chemistry. Let’s keep it going.