Dream Man #5

He does not ask you to perch on a curb
outside an abandoned gas station while he accepts
a video call from his wife. There is no

wife. It’s been years since he Windexed
the long-dried lipstick mark from the passenger
side window, leaving a conspicuous lack

of symbolism. The divorce was a mess
of feeling, but each of them organized
an inventory of the parts

of themselves they would
not be leaving behind. He left
everything behind, spent his evenings

making himself from scratch over personal
pan pizzas in a one-bedroom apartment.
You imagine it was dark, candlelit perhaps,

but to the south was a wall of windows and
sometimes, when he sat on his secondhand couch
in the evening, he would have to shield his eyes.