Three

by Francine Witte

AARN GIRI/Unsplash

My girl Is vanilla bean, Lies on the floor like a scraggled mop. One day she makes me breakfast. More than a dozen eggs or so. It is all bubble and scramble, And I would tell her everything if I thought she could take it, but she can’t, she would curl up like steam, float out the window like an old butterfly. One time we waited together for the refrigerator man to come. It was hours, it was days, and then he showed up, turned the cold back on for us. We thanked him, said we can’t do anything by ourselves. We can’t even love each other anymore.

My other girl Is not sweet like butterfly flutters. She gibbers and takes my breath by the neck. Floors me with her love, splatters me like a dozen eggs, or so it feels. She grows in me like a vanilla bean, a sweet, scented , and I sniff the air which is deep with her. She is steam and curls the paint right off the walls when she walks in the room. She takes one look at the refrigerator, man that’s all it takes. All the food inside of it cooks itself. I would run away with her. I would leave my girl for my other girl, but she would leave me mashed up potato by the side of the road.

My other other girl When I climb her she is the tippiest floor. She is everything that I can’t reach. I don’t really even know her, but I want to. I see her everyday as she walks by. vanilla bean chocolate. She’s dream and butterfly, the steam that I breathe in. I count to a dozen. Eggs or so many strips of bacon. She is delicious. She is dream. She is refrigerator man who you wait for and never shows. I would sit her all day and watch for her but there is my girl and my other girl. They both know about her. They both tell me I’m crazy. What do you want with a dream gauze woman. You have a real woman, they both say. Two, I don’t say. Three, my heart says into the wind.

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Francine Witte is the author of ten books of poetry and flash fiction. Her flash fiction collection RADIO WATER is forthcoming from Roadside Press in January 2024. Her poetry collection is forthcoming from Cervena Barva Press in summer, 2024. She is flash fiction editor of FLASH BOULEVARD and South Florida Poetry Journal. Visit her website at francinewitte.com