by Shannon Frost Greenstein
after The Mountain Goats
Jenny calls from Montana/she’s only passing through
Probably never see her again in this life I guess/not sure what I’m gonna do
How many times is it the last time;
an unintentional farewell, a symbiotic swan song,
before there will never again be a stage to share?
How many times do we fail to realize
we impact as we are impacted,
Truth in Phenomenology and Escher’s doodling hands;
the butterfly effect holding sway over all.
Do we ever know we’ve missed the last chance
to say what hasn’t been said?
How many times does that light go out,
the flame of human intimacy extinguished,
for every communal experience that can never be relived
because the last time together has come and gone
without anyone being aware?
Matthew, the alcoholic ex-boyfriend who was my first experience with love;
Jacqueline, the childhood best friend who inhabits my earliest memories;
Amanda, the frenemy against whom I once measured every facet of my being;
Lawrence, the first older man on whom I developed an agonizing crush;
Generic Frat Boy, who plied me with beer and took my virginity;
Kate, the roommate who lives in Europe, because who honestly wants to return to the USA now?
Daniel, who came out as Queer to me for the first time while I was studying in Australia;
How many times would we give anything to know
when it is the end, before it is the end;
when that cousin or neighbor or star-crossed lover
will no longer be in our lives
for the entirety of the rest of our lives?
How many times would we know what to say?
I’ll probably never see you again in this life
“So please know…I love you.”
Except for Generic Frat Boy. I would kick him in the balls instead.
Shannon Frost Greenstein (she/her) resides in Philadelphia with her children, soulmate, and persnickety cats. She is the author of “Correspondence to Nowhere” (Nonfiction, Bone & Ink Press, 2022), “Pray for Us Sinners,” (Fiction, Alien Buddha Press, 2020), and “More.” (Poetry, Wild Pressed Books, 2020). Shannon is a former Ph.D. candidate in Continental Philosophy and a multi-time Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. Her work has appeared in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Pithead Chapel, Bending Genres, X-R-A-Y Lit Mag, and elsewhere. Follow her at shannonfrostgreenstein.com or on Twitter at @ShannonFrostGre.
