Abigail M. Schilling

I always miss you on laundry days.

We used to do it together, over the phone. I'd sit on the dryer in my laundry room, phone pressed between my shoulder and my ear. We were hundreds of feet apart and we'd race to finish. It was a silly race; the prize being helping the other with folding.

***

I miss you whenever I tie a knot.

This seems crazy. Knot tying was something we only did once. And yet, as soon as I completed a square knot I wanted to text you: "square knot. 2 seconds."

You'd text back something about seasickness. The thing is, we've never texted.

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Missing you pervades me.

It it a deep seeping feeling, like the cold in New Jersey. And when I find something that you have not touched I rejoice in that thing as I think Columbus rejoiced when he found the New World.

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Places we've never been make me miss you.

The way you did that--filtered in to every cranny like cigarette smoke--makes me miss you even more and when I finally go the place you said you'd always take me, I wait for you at the Brooklyn Bridge. We had decided that suspension bridges were something we cared about. But we never made it to the Great Belt Bridge in Denmark or the Walt Whitman Bridge in Philadelphia. Maybe suspension bridges are like knots.

***

You missed me in Philadelphia.

I was there, during one of those times we try to erase with memories like these, doing away with you and shopping for rowhouses. I was, of course, taking pictures of everything and when you can across my pictures you emailed me despite our vow of silence and exclaimed that you wished you were there with me.

I had no choice then but to buy a rowhouse in the New World. I'm still looking for it.