You Followed Me to New York

by Erin Little

Luke Stackpoole

On a day stubborn with rain to a tiny room in Crown Heights with a sink in the closet & an errant mouse we named something I no longer remember. What I do remember: you arrived in Brooklyn on your birthday, September, a light chill threaded the air. You stepped out of a cab & my body opened fully to you. My face lit like a bulb, ecstatic as a baby who’s found some thing that moves her. Babies don’t assign names to things, & I admire them for it. To name something is to punch a clock, set it ticking toward a certain end. We ducked into a cafe on Franklin Ave to escape the rain, humidity turned sweat on our foreheads. You were quiet, but you were always quiet. Except today, I needed your voice. I needed you to unstick your thighs from the plastic chair, to meet my gaze, hold it & say, “Erin.” But you looked down, at your phone, or else out the window at people wrestling with umbrellas, hidden under scaffolds. You retrieved our coffee from the counter, brought it back like a funeral procession: slow, methodic, focused. It was my turn to look out the window, at the backdrop of our new life. You said my name to break my gaze, but the word fell from your mouth, rolled on the floor. By the time it reached me, it was a nothing-sound, meatless. Might as well have been the rain.

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Erin Little’s work has appeared in New Orleans Review, Chestnut Review, Juxtaprose Magazine and Pembroke Magazine. In her day job, she works for Penguin Random House as an editorial assistant. Originally from Texas, she lives in Jersey City with her black cat, Roo.