Connor Lane

Leland Quarterly | Winter 2022

he decided—then and there, pen to paper—to take a stance, choose a path, and get on with it; anything else more, I believe, would have been wasted words.

“Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines” – Pablo Neruda. Translated by W S Merwin and A.N.Other.

At least I got to spend your birthday with you

Connor Lane

For our last meal, I took you to the Creamery off Ramona. We ate on the patio. It was empty, but us. We could have watched the cars at the intersection. Two separate drivers played music so loud. Or the group of kids we probably knew walking from the stadium. We could have talked. But we just feasted. Caribbean French toast. Banana chunks in the syrup pool. Egg fried on top like candy. Smoked salmon. Chorizo sausage mixed in hash browns, doused in Tabasco. We woke up so late, that last day. Lazily, like there was no red-eye home or “intrinsic differences” between us. And when we walked around the square after, we could have stopped looking at our shoes. We could have sat on that bench by the duck pond and let our mouths go over glass reflection. We could have looked up, even.

We could have seen the sun sliding away between that church steeple and the museum on the corner. But instead, when my gaze lifted, it wasn’t to talk. I just stared into your eyes and felt it.

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