“Internet Dating, Day 16” by Josh Lefkowitz

When I read about the one girl who studies orangutans

suddenly my passion for apes knows no cage-like containment.

Another young woman travels widely in the summer

and there I am zip-lining alongside her above Cozumel’s white sands.

When they hate black licorice, I swear to ne’er eat it again.

They all like Mad Men– seriously, they all like Mad Men–

and so I don my best clenched Draper jaw, click and upload accordingly.

It’s all a perfectly amiable way in which to pass the day,

sifting through a sea of smiling beauties, sailing witty inquiry boats.

But if I’m being honest, I miss you-

-r better moments, your silent laugh, body shaking in soundless guffaws,

or those nights you spelled letter-by-letter words on my chalkboard back.

And your hand in mine, which deserves its own line.

Strange, to sit here with infinity at my fingertips, wondering

how I got it so wrong – that what I thought a spark was actually a wildfire.

Josh Lefkowitz received an Avery Hopwood Award for Poetry at the University of Michigan. His poems have been published in Washington Square Review, Contrary, Electric Literature, Court Green, Shooter Literary Magazine (UK) and Southword Journal (Ireland), among many other places.