The Last Time I Saw You

                        by Shaun R. Pankoski


was in front of a pancake house
outside the Strip. The air was dirty dry,
those boots hurt my feet, my sequined shirt
looked garish in the mid-afternoon light.
You called me a cab,
walked me to the curb, pulled me close.

In the crook of your neck I said
“I love you,” plainly,
in that same,
matter-of-fact way I'd said goodbye
a sad, sweet long ago.

Yet, here we were again,
leaving fragments and fibers of ourselves behind,
the space between us just large enough
for the exhale of one
to be taken in by the other.

When you replied,
I tried to imagine not leaving,
becoming indivisible,
immovable in a swirling world.
But like a scab,

a tangle,
a pulled tooth -
thinking about the loss
was more painful than the loss itself,
and in the aftermath,
relief.


* * * * *

Shaun R. Pankoski is a retired County worker living in Volcano on the Island of Hawai'i with her cat, Kiko, and a bunch of coqui frogs. She held a Top Secret clearance in the Air Force, was an artist's model for over twenty years and was a founding member of a Modern Dance company in San Francisco. She is a two time breast cancer survivor and makes a mean corn chowder.