Siri Pleas
Not I,
not tonight.
Not even halfway home
when this notification brakes
your black bike
before the lichened gate
of the community
labyrinth—
where now, we must
usher each other
down
the same trepid path
between
drought and fire and flood
once again; trying
to mindfully ankle past
drenched burrs
of wilting wildflowers—
tiptoeing together
into the droning
middle of this
frenetic triangle
of unbelieving
honeybees.
Here, where
I ask you again
to agree.
Touch ID (ii)
I glow but you don’t touch me. I glow, but you won’t touch me
sat on that fake-granite bench, drenched in the blue refractions
of Marc Chagall’s America Windows. Here, for 40 minutes,
you don’t touch me till I glow: Okay. We can talk another day.
You don’t touch me until aboard a northbound Brown Line,
where, for 24 minutes, you puzzle me methodically, quizzically,
as I load sudoku after sudoku for you to resolve. Your numb thumbs
swipe the latest winter weather advisory away. The next time you
touch me, freezing rain speckles my glitching face upon your
brother’s front porch. You touch me, and I autocorrect WYA
to Where are you at? You touch me and I whisper the time.
You touch me, and as I whisper the time, you wipe my dinging
face. Keys under the mat, I whisper, and before I know it, I am tethered
to the wall of your brother’s crumby kitchenette. For 42 minutes,
you don’t touch me. Periodically, I glow the latest news face down
into the everything-bagel-sprinkled countertop : your best buddy
from high school might swing by the big party … Chinese officials
are probing an unusual pneumonia outbreak … Mom wants to know
once you’ve made it to your brother’s safely … But the next time
you touch me, both your thumbs are swollen and froze. You yank me
into the bathroom, where clumsily you touch me, shuffling
Chance the Rapper’s “Blessings.” You hum off into the steaming
shower while I auto-connect with your Garmin, downloading
and uploading your dotted timestamped steps; onto Strava I post
this public map overlayed with your own heart-rate data.
What happened here, along the lakeshore, beside the planetarium?
Your pace crashes to zero, yet your heart leapt up to 188… ?
When you next touch me, your waterlogged fingers still smudge
my face through your fetid Dri-fit. You touch me and I update
your mother: Happy almost New Year! All good over here!
You touch me, and your brother replies : On my way! Home.
You shut his bedroom door, slump before his bedroom desk,
where for 44 minutes, you touch me, FaceTiming your ex—
but as per our agreement, I shall not relay all I have seen.
The next time you touch me, nearly four hours have gone,
the doorbell has rung and rung, and now all your fingers feel
drunk. You unplug me into a hallway, crowded with faces
I can’t quite recognize : faces laughing, faces shouting, faces
posing for photos and showing each other the time. You touch me,
and I listen to your brother apprise stocks inside his tiny kitchenette.
You touch me, and I hear your best buddy crack open another round of
Black Cherry White Claws. When next you touch me, you only want me
to record the climax of the party. Unfortunately, I must politely refuse.
I ask you to delete a few file to free up storage space, so you stumble
us back into the bathroom, where you stab me repeatedly, red eyes
skimming down these hyper scrolled squares—searching for
something you feel ready to forget. As you touch me and touch
me. I watch your retinas failing to focus upon any singular
photo: not your sloshed friends; not your shaky placards;
not the wing of this airplane; not this tiny, nearly-full
moon. Tomorrow you will touch me, trying to tell
yourself some story—but I will only be able to
whisper whatever you do not delete. You touch
me and touch me, as the big countdown begins
shouting itself beneath the bathroom door.
In under four hours you will touch me,
wondering how you broke your tooth.
So before this screaming decade
begins, I have to ask:
Are you sure?
Ryan Drendel is the creator of Flagstaff Cycle-Zine! and coeditor of Gathering Points: a literary field guide presented by the Northern Arizona Book Festival. Other samples from his first manuscript, Siri, Please Read Me the User Agreement Again can be found in Meridian, Rougarou, Parentheses, Scribendi, Complete Sentence, The Wax Paper, and The Pinch Online, among others.