Photo by Michael oyesile on Unsplash
by Francine Witte
And there are no letters in my fingers but I’m typing anyway.
If only I didn’t hate this job in this tired office and what I have to do for money, and that’s when I think of my father and little-girl me riding the waves at Long Beach.
A gull screech, a boat horn, and my father is picking me up in his arms, lifting me up with each new wave.
This is my father 100%, maybe the only thing that made me forget his string of lost jobs and how he was always fighting with my mother.
And I want this office to be a beach and here is the water, deep part of hope, deep swim of yesterday where I’m still in my father’s arms, and how much do I want him to lift me out of here.
I type SOS and these are the letters that my hands know, my fingers know, and it’s all I can do not to jump up in the middle of the office, jump myself out of my bones and ride the wave that is the rest of my life.
Francine Witte is a flash fiction writer and poet, and the author of the flash collection RADIO WATER. Her newest poetry book, Some Distant Pin of Light, has just been published by Cervena Barva Press. Her work has been widely published, and she is a recent recipient of a Pushcart Prize.
