LOVE LETTERS TO GIRLS I’VE SMILED AT VAGUELY THINKING IT MIGHT BE TRUE LOVE

Words by Julia DaSilva Illustration by Maia Grecco

PLAY I thought I saw you when I stepped to the counter the third morning in a row, and you waved my hand ready to pay away as you slid the faded blue mug towards me, “It’s fine” you caught my eye between the swish of your ponytail and the glint of gold at the rim of your glasses “It’s fine” I caught on the second time, but it wasn’t

because you were waiting in the bakery across the street (I thought I saw) hair chopped short uneven as the flustered words I offered for a cream-filled cookie, melting as I left like the “It’s fine” I crammed into my backpack with the crumpled bag,

I thought I saw you on the streetcar, later, combat boots on the seat in front of you so that that checker of streetcar-board was all yours (I was bubbled small into my seat) and I thought we caught each other in the windows, looking out to flicker in. Was it your Dixie Chicks t-shirt that flipped my playlist to “Cowboy Take Me Away”? When did the air become so full so charged that graphics can make music and let us off at the same stop but heave us apart into the night? “Hope to see you back soon” like it’s the fantasy book you sold me (you spent so long scanning the shelves) “New Releases” (that’s what tripped us up),

—that I am past playing games no one sees I am playing— but it will turn out that helping name house plants is not after all

“It’s fine,” I thought, because this weekend we have arranged to meet at that same cafe, and I will trade my coffee for iced tea. You will fill me like an almond croissant, and then you will wash me from your hands.

I will think for one shy slumber party’s worth of cider, that I am past smiling at you at poetry readings then turning back to my notebook ignoring the flicker flicker—for one morning of helping you name your cactus I will think I am past reading into your as good as a marriage. It’s fine. If you’re reading this and we’ve exchanged brief smiles, someday someday, it will be the smile you pour like bottomless coffee into my over-caffeinated heart when you come downstairs and I say “Honey, I’ve baked bread” and you say “Honey, it’s six a.m.” but the flicker of your smile lights the oven and the coffee pot and the electric air stops flickering holds warm as the summer streetcar that rolls me into your life (I think I see)