twenty-seven negatives: the disposable camera I forgot on your kitchen counter
I. Your house from the highway, coming up in stone;
II. the underpass where I wait for you—
III. the baseball diamond where you wait for me.
IV. Your house from the couch in the barn,
V. the couch in the barn; your boots over the arm.
VI. Dusty air, slat-sided sun: stretch marks in the crook of your elbow.
VII. Us in the graveyard; mausoleum against the sunset,
VIII. me on a swing at the playground against the sunset,
IX. sunset through the walls of our abandoned house.
X. Our abandoned house: tin cans, two sets of stairs,
XI. disassembled chimney (I took some home for stove bricks).
XII. Me leaning against the industrial stove in your kitchen
XIII. with ice on my mouth; me with a fat lip, your strawberry-stain lips,
XIV. morning lips: swollen. Black & white—ice cubes half-melted
XV. in your cupped hands. Skittles, pseudoephedrine.
XVI. You wearing my shorts: the closet door
XVII. in his old bedroom—blank walls, a digital scale,
XVIII. suggestion of a ghost in his old bedroom—
XIX. orb of a ghost in the mirror at the caved-in house.
XX. Back door of your apartment taken from
XXI. the high school track; my sister’s steeplechase
XXII. records; plastic-wrapped in a particle board
XXIII. cabinet, your kitchen from the perspective of
XXIV. Maddie-dog. Maddie-dog from the perspective of
XXV. the porch bench, your head on a pillow in my lap:
XXVI. wisdom teeth post-op. Vicodin, red Jell-o
XXVII. at the tip of your Novocaine-tongue: my blue-veined wrist.
Savannah Skinner is a senior at SUNY Geneseo. She has answered this question multiple times, and is accruing a lot of fictional best friends. She’d probably choose someone who doesn’t seem like the jealous type. Charlie Bucket, perhaps, due to his generosity and his lifetime supply of Wonka candy.