The long list of people who want to run away with the circus,

by MJ McGinn

graffiti pirate ship hold outs
asleep in hammocks stick
and poke smiles
that feeling when you’re really doing it
combing your hair with fingers and sea shells
making coffee in a travel French press pulling
water from a river when your phone midnights to life
and you’re not supposed to answer but you do
red pen your name on every East Coast lamp post
asking for a good time
she’s been missing
you back and you smell
her cigarette morning breath in every bird soft word
the staleness of wanting
you’re the same person after all these years
wrapping memory in her dirty clothes so it doesn’t die in the cold

~~~

MJ McGinn received his MFA from Adelphi University and was a VCCA resident in 2019. His work has been included in The Wigleaf Top 50 Very Short Fictions, and has been published in X-R-A-Y Magazine, the Guernica/PEN flash series, Necessary Fiction, Drunk Monkeys, and elsewhere. He lives in Philadelphia.