Two months since I left Wisconsin, packed up and moved home to Hawai‘i.
The phone rings, and it’s her. I didn’t know she had my number here.
She wants to know how I’m doing; I don’t have much to say to her,
but it’s one of those coincidences you can’t quite believe.
I’m playing Jane Olivor’s Stay the Night, one of our favorite albums.
“Listen to this,” I say, holding the receiver next to the speaker.
The song is “Solitaire.” I let her hear it for 10 seconds or so.
“That song reminds me of you,” she says.
I can’t figure this out. After all, who dumped whom?
I should have asked her not to call me again.
Not to worry; she doesn’t.
That was June, and it’s coming on Christmas now.
A letter shows up in my mailbox, a card wishing me happy holidays.
Happy? I didn’t know she had my address here either.
She says, after those cheery words, that by the way,
she wants me to know that she’s broken up with the guy for good,
would I consider moving back to Madison so we can resume
where we left off when her former boyfriend moved back to Madison and broke us up.
That would make him her former, former boyfriend.
As I tear up the card, I think about him now being,
if you combine like terms, a former2 boyfriend.
Exponentially, even though he’s lost twice,
he’s ahead of me still, and I want it to stay that way.
Lanning Lee 