denny.

The first time I met Denny I was waiting in line for a tuna fish sandwich. She was talking to our professor about buying a plane ticket to Tokyo. I smiled at her with thin lips and introduced myself as a poet.

The second time we were standing shoulder to sweaty shoulder on the Tokyo metro hurtling ourselves deep into the earth. I grabbed hold and shook her out suspiciously, expecting step mothers and curfews and hand sanitizer. But when I found nothing, or ready emptiness, with her specific Herculean authority she took me in her arms, tossed me in her Jansport, and said "let's go, doll."

When she left to join her husband three weeks later a catfish flipped in my chest.  It's true, what they say - the aftershocks are worse.