Text Me Back (His and Hers)

Jesse Doiron

January 29, 2023

Text Me Back (His)

Enveloped in the gray-blue light, 

I think my quiet thoughts

are right at hand to send –

a flickering of meaning on 

a scintillating screen.

I leave an icon at the end

to say I want you back. 

Text Me Back (Hers)

“Let it go,” I said.

“I can’t.  You know.”

So, I pulled her back into the bed,

held her belly, 

cupped a breast,

kissed her hair,

listened to her weep.

Then, 

abruptly,

in despair, 

she threw the phone across the sheets.

“It was him – 

again.”

Jesse Doiron spent 13 years overseas in countries where he often felt as if he were a “thing” that had human qualities but couldn’t communicate them. He teaches college in Texas, now, to people a third his age. He still feels, often, as if he is a “thing” that has human qualities but can’t communicate them.