For Carolyn Bush (from A9 or D9)

by Allyson Erwin

I was on Fairfax Avenue. I was eating a $12 salad.

I was across the street from this beautiful animal hospital, its off-white columns flanked by hedges tall
like trees

when I received the following text message: “Do you remember Carolyn Bush?”

I watched the ellipsis, the ellipsis as it grew and as it shrank
as I waited,

as they typed and stopped and -

I knew that no one ever asks that, unless

but they said "She was stabbed to death."

And I am flying home now, and I am I am crying in the window seat while the man in the aisle coughs,

and the middle

the middle seat is empty, for the third flight in a row, and I am
I am glad for this,
I am glad for this
only.