Jan and I went to a masque as each other.
We swapped interiorities, bandied psyches
about. Hell has indeed frozen over: I’m nice
for once, said Jan-as-me. I grinned, Janly.
I will hereby objectify my Other to place in
my shadow box, we thought, simultaneously.
Each of us was placed in a shadow box. Monks
put flowers outside us, played piano, screamed,
and we forgot our shells. Minutes passed. Jan
wrote this because she loves me, I feared. No
shit. She was a future, and I had ghosts.

————

Marit Ericson is a twentysomething, graduate student, and poet, among other things. Her work has lately appeared in various online journals. She begins each day—in dread, at peace, with pancakes—in northcentral New Jersey.