We Lost the Signal Right Before

The call dropped twice. We tried once more.

It dropped. We went to text.

I had a thing I'd been building toward—

and it was finally next.

I typed it out. Read it back.

The thread had already moved.

The beat was off. The track

had shifted. The groove

I'd needed: gone. I held

my thumb there. Then deleted.

She sent a meme. I spelled

out ha. The moment: completed

by not completing. The thread

just rolling on. The link

she sent. The thing I'd said

nowhere. The brink

I'd stepped back from, invisible

in the scrolling chat.

The phone face-up. The syllable

I kept. The habitat

of small talk we rebuilt

in twenty minutes flat.

She said: anyway. The silt

of what I almost—that.

The signal fine now. Clear.

The thing still in my mouth.