Marketplace

There is a cord that runs between two cities, and it doesn't collapse when you name the distance exact. Tirana and Barcelona. In Tirana stands Krunor, someone I write to and am held by across this distance, his hands cold in the morning sun, diesel and grilled meat at the distance he knows. Me standing here in the dark Barcelona cold, the air bracing and still. Seventeen days is what we're measuring now - not smoothed into longing that softens itself, not stretched into the hope that the next word will close the gap. Just seventeen days, exact as it is.