by Piper Pugh

This morning, she wrote my name on a napkin in Lanna, folded it in my palm and hummed it out her way, with new spaces stretched between my letters. Some she flipped longways and threaded back like a harp string; some she sped, slowed, melted, so my last letter dropped off abrupt, her worn hand having to keep me from running straight off the ledge.

Just like that, with her tongue twisted inside my mouth, the letters would stay stuck, make a home, so my name was only mine if it was hers first.

Piper Pugh is a writer and educator living in Los Angeles, CA.